Insurer fills void at Meadow Brook Corporate Park

2004 Real Estate Deals

Runner-up * Office



BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama in April signed to fill a huge hole - 101,527 square feet - at Meadow Brook Corporate Park in Hoover. Brad Jones of Daniel Corporation represented the landlord; Mark Byers, Thornton Hydinger, Jr. and Bill Pradat, all of Eason Graham & Sandner, Inc. represented BlueCross BlueShield.



The economic impact on the surrounding community is not just good news for BlueCross BlueShield, Daniel Corporation is a co-developer of Meadow Brook Corporate Park and looked hard to find a tenant to fill space left vacant by Washington Group International Inc.



At the signing, Jones said, "It will probably be the biggest (lease) deal of the year. It's a huge deal in the (soft office space) market we've been experiencing the past 18 months or so." BlueCross looked at several locations before choosing the Meadow Brook property. Jones said in April 2004 that the insurer found the site attractive for several reasons: "location, flexibility and access."



BlueCross still has its 800,000 square foot headquarters on a 70-acre campus. Jim Brown, the insurer's senior vice president for customer relations, has said that the move to Meadow Brook is a part of a long-term growth plan. "If you wait until you're maxed out, you're too late," he said in April. The insurer uses the new space for its Cahaba Government Benefit Administrators unit, which handles Medicare claims for more than 3.5 million beneficiaries in Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi and South Dakota. The unit handled $10.2 billion in benefits for 2003.



Meadow Brook North LLC, a joint venture between Daniel Corporation and Prudential Insurance Company of America, owns four of the 175-acre park's eight multi-tenant buildings, including 300 Corporate Parkway, which opened in 1988.



The greatest challenge in bringing the project to fulfillment was that the transaction required relocating six tenants and terminating three other leases, as BlueCross took the entire 300 building. The insurer also insisted on space in Hoover, relatively near its headquarters on Riverchase Parkway East.