Provo Craft building sold
The founders of the Roberts Arts and Crafts chain sold their scrapbooking supplies distribution center in Spanish Fork to a New York real estate investment trust for $12.6 million.
Instead of leasing the building from its founders, Provo Craft & Novelty Inc. of Spanish Fork will lease the 212,685-square-foot property at 3450 N. 151 East, from Corporate Property Associates 16 Global Inc., an affiliate of W.P. Carey Co. LLC in New York.
Provo Craft, founded in 1969 and now with 800 workers, owns 11 Roberts Arts and Crafts stores in Utah including four in Orem, Provo, American Fork and Pleasant Grove, and one in Idaho. The business is also partly owned by Sorenson Capital, which became an equity investor in Provo Craft last year.
“The sale of the property is part of a long-term exit strategy of the founders. But their retirement is a long way off,” said Kevin Buckner, a Provo Craft co-founder.
Buckner, along with Provo Craft co-founders Robert Workman, Darwin Russon and Eric Larsen, still own between 8 and 10 acres of undeveloped land west of the Provo Craft building.
“W.P. Carey is in the business of buying buildings that are 100 percent leased to tenants. This is a common corporate financing mechanism, where companies sell their real estate assets and lease them back on a long-term basis,” said Guy Lawrence, spokesman for W.P. Carey.
Provo Craft makes and distributes more than 6,000 of its own products in papercrafts, general crafts and home decor, and distributes more than 20,000 items made by other small manufacturers to retailers worldwide.
“We were able to extract value from the Provo Craft facility on behalf of the founders of the company with no impact on the operations or finances of the company,” said Workman, another Provo Craft founder, said in a statement Tuesday.
In addition to the acquisition of Provo Craft’s building, W.P. Carey also acquired the office, research and development, and assembly buildings of LifePort Inc. in Woodland, Wash., and Georgetown, Texas, for $6.8 million. LifePort is a Woodland, Wash.-based manufacturer of aviation products.
“In the case of the Provo Craft transaction we were able to maximize the cash value of the facility for the founders of the company who owned the property,” said Gino Sabatini, director of W.P. Carey.
W.P. Carey owns more than 700 commercial and industrial properties in 13 countries, representing about 94 million square feet and valued at about $8 billion.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D6.