Former Borders headquarters on Phoenix Drive listed for sale for $6.9M

The former headquarters of Ann Arbor-based bookstore chain Borders Group Inc. on Phoenix Drive was listed for sale Thursday for $6.9 million.

Ann Arbor’s Colliers International is marketing the two buildings, which total 330,000 square feet, after the former property owner, Farmington Hills-based Agree Realty Co., defaulted on a loan last year.

Now vacant, the former Borders headquarters on Phoenix Drive is listed for sale for $6.9 million.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

Agree owed $5.6 million in principal on the loan as of last summer, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In December, Ann Arbor-based real estate firm McKinley Inc. was appointed to serve as property and asset manager for the building.

Colliers’ Jim Chaconassaid McKinley is still managing the property but Colliers has taken over the listing.

The buildings are currently vacant after Borders liquidated last year and cell phone recycling firmReCellular Inc. then movedfrom its 13,000-square-foot space in the building to a location in Pittsfield Township.

The buildings were built in 1970 and renovated in 1998, and the property has 1,283 parking spaces.

When Agree still owned the property, the company had listed the headquarters property for sale in 2010 for more than $18 million but reduced the asking price to $10 million in 2011.

Chaconas said the new asking price of $6.9 million will allow a new owner "to come in and do what they like with the building, such as doing their own facade or infrastructure.”

He added: “One building is 90,000 square feet and then there’s the rest, so we’ve been looking at many possibilities. It can be multi-tenant or each tenant can take a section.”

It also presents an opportunity for a major corporate tenant to relocate its headquarters.

“One of the problems we have with companies is a parking issue,” he said. “This has more parking than any building out there.”

Lizzy Alfs is a business reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at 734-623-2584 or email her atlizzyalfs@annarbor.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lizzyalfs.