University of Arkansas completes $3.7M purchase of former Pace Industries HQ in Fayetteville

The University of Arkansas has acquired the former Pace Industries headquarters at 481 Shiloh Drive along Interstate 49 in Fayetteville.

The UA board of trustees approved a purchase price of $3.7 million at its regular November board meeting. The ownership deed was filed Wednesday (Dec. 8) at the Washington County courthouse.

Commercial real estate office CBRE in Fayetteville, led by David Erstine and Hunter Groce, marketed the 6.3-acre property for $3.95 million.

“The property will be used to house certain non-student facing activities,” UA System President Don Bobbitt wrote in a letter to trustees. “It will allow for the co-location of several College of Education and Health Professions outreach units, as well as space for I3R and other research support until the I3R building is complete.”

The UA funded the acquisition from university reserves. The purchase price equals $166.67 per square foot.

UA spokesman Mark Rushing said plans for the building also include space for the University Advancement division. He added that the UA purchased the building and its contents for a price below the appraised amount for the building without the contents.

I3R is the Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research (I3R) Center, the UA’s newest cross-disciplinary research facility. Site work has started for the facility at the southeast corner of Dickson and Duncan streets on the southeast side of the UA campus.  It’s expected to be approximately 130,000 square feet.

The UA has not released details about the official groundbreaking for the new facility, although UA officials told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal previously a tentative date is January 2022, with building occupancy in January 2024. Rushing said Wednesday that groundbreaking is likely in the spring

The UA bought the 22,200-square-foot building from Store Master Funding III LLC, an affiliate of Store Capital Corp. of Scottsdale, Ariz. The company put the building up for sale this summer when the tenant, Pace Industries, relocated its corporate headquarters to suburban Detroit.

Pace Industries is an aluminum, zinc and magnesium die casting company.