From our website....commercial brokerage done right

We take pride in setting realistic expectations and providing pragmatic advice to our clients & potential clients, acknowledging their opinions but making sure our experienced perspective is preserved. We offer firm, fair and seasoned brokerage services, with an expert level of understanding regarding transaction & lease language and its consequences. We know our markets well; achievable rent rates and property values, productivity of locations and traffic patterns, etc. Our leasing successes include the largest, most complicated, multi-tenant retail properties in the region and working with dozens of national, regional & local tenants and owners.

As a tenant, you will be counseled on which properties and locations fit your type of business, support your long term goals as well as how to negotiate terms that will satisfy your initial needs. Our frank assessment of your business's needs is not influenced by which properties we have listed.  

As a landlord, we will provide you with realistic strategies as part of a comprehensive plan for overall profitability and tenant retention. You will know what we think about value, expected costs and achievable deal terms. Our analysis will be knowledgeable, experienced and honest, we will not pander with the intent to obtain a listing and create unrealistic expectations, so often the plight of success.  

The real estate market is influenced by much more than the supply and demand for space. Our industry is affected by the cost of capital, underwriting standards, construction costs and numerous other factors often not completely understood by casual investors or property owners. As such, the brokerage process entails much more than simply facilitating a transaction. To obtain successful results, we balance the needs & desires of landlords & tenants, utilizing thorough market knowledge and expert negotiation skills. In commercial real estate the best deal is a fair deal.

This and other expressions of our perspective on doing business in commercial real estate can be found throughout our web site, we encourage you to explore it and discover who we are and how we can help guide your success in commercial real estate.  

83 Years and still "Raising the Barr".

H. Robert (Bob) Barr, founder of Center Investments, Inc. (and namesake to this journal) turned 83 today and as we celebrated that achievement he still managed to teach me a lesson, one of many over the years. Bob demonstrates, as I imagine he always has, how comforting it is to proceed into the twilight of your life with the knowledge you have always treated people honestly, ethically and with respect. Working in the commercial real estate business for 10 plus years has illustrated exactly how rare, challenging & significant those traits are. I have come to realize that my pride in treating people honestly & ethically has at times impeded my doing so with the appropriate level of respect for their perspective. Honesty can be quite "blunt" and arrogant if not tempered with consideration, a lesson I am learning.

Gathering together for dinner I was reminded of something Bob said to me a long time ago; "do one thing & do it better than everyone else". He said it with such earnestness that even though it is a common turn of phase, it was the last time I ever needed to hear it because it finally stuck and that has guided my path for the last 15 years. Tonight's lesson from Bob was a follow up to that adage but it was not something he said it is something very evident of his exemplary contentment in life; In being the best at what you do the recognition of others is not required. Thank you for everything Bob & Happy Birthday.

- Chaun

Jack In the Box opens with a lesson....

Slow and steady prevails in commercial real estate.

Jack in the Box recently opened in East Wenatchee at the former Maid O’ Clover site on the corner of Grant Rd. and Eastmont Ave.  Several people, knowing our involvement in the property, have told us that it was good to see something finally happen there after its long dark period (store closed in mid 2005). This project, like most in commercial real estate, proved that patience and perseverance not only pay off in the end but are often the only option for true success in a development project.

The opening this past week was the culmination of a very complicated transaction including tenant buyouts, environmental due diligence, additional land acquisition, reciprocal easements, several near misses with other tenants and methodical lease negotiation all of which tested the limits of patience with the ownership & Center Investments, Inc. Often brokers are accused of not earning their pay, exemplified by simple transactions that turn quickly.  In this instance we were paid only after nearly six years of tenaciously applying our knowledge of commercial leases, marketing & property development. 

The property was a former C-store with gas pumps acquired by myself (Dan Barr) along with the owner’s of Eastpoint Plaza (Cascade Property Group), the adjacent property . As longtime managers of Eastpoint we had a good existing relationship with their group and this corner would play off their property, a fortunate pairing that ultimately was essential to success.   We put the property under contract to purchase from a lender in Idaho who obtained title from the former C-Store operator who had lost the property to bankruptcy. After completing some $10,000 in due diligence to determine we weren’t buying an environmental problem caused by the gas tanks we purchased the property. By that time we had a letter of intent with the national tenant for whom we purchased the property to do a build-to-suit, the project showed great promise early on.

A deal with that tenant did not materialize despite two additional attempts spanning a three year time period. In the mean time another tenant, Banner Bank, was set on coming to the location and then ended up purchasing another bank which already had an East Wenatchee location. All the while we chased off people selling cars, had fun at the Classy Chassis parade every year and kept our view on the horizon and our communications open with Jack In The Box.

We had previously represented the property owner of the Wenatchee Jack in the Box location and had gone through a lengthy negotiation of a ground lease there. Before that we had worked with them on two other locations, over the previous five years, trying to get them to re-enter a market that had thrown them out so many years ago. We knew Jack viewed Wenatchee as a two store market and this East Wenatchee location would suit them if it could be expanded to accommodate their drive through restaurant, so with our fortuitous ownership group we set out with a vision to find a path to success. 

It took two years to achieve a signed lease with Jack In the Box, which was conditioned upon expanding the site, working out reciprocal access issues and terminating the Tradewinds Coffee kiosk which occupied the adjacent area; all necessary to the task of delivering a functional location. Solving these issues specifically for Jack in the Box took three years but as of yesterday you could buy a Jumbo Jack on the corner of Grant Rd. & Eastmont Ave. in East Wenatchee.

- Dan Barr

Introducing "Raising the Barr"

As a real estate developer for independent grocers and of retail centers throughout Washington Bob Barr realized his most valuable asset was the trust earned by providing wise counsel to partners, clients & tenants; his realization instituted a tradition at Center Investments as educator and advisor on the complexities of commercial real estate.   

Today that tradition takes new form; in this segment, aptly titled "Raising the Barr", we invite your participation to interact as property & business owners, investors & professionals to ask and answer questions or simply comment on the multitude of complex issues encountered in the realm of commercial real estate; investment properties, retail & office tenancy, property management & leasing, or brokerage and marketing.