Blue Cross sells 2 downtown office buildings

PROVIDENCE – In its first move into the metro Providence market, Boston-based Berkeley Investments Inc. this week announced it has purchased two downtown buildings formerly owned by Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.

The two properties – 15 LaSalle Square and One Empire Plaza – will be occupied by BCBSRI employees until 2010, when the insurer is expected to move its roughly 1,000 employees to the 325,000-square-foot new headquarters currently under construction at a Capital Center site that overlooks Waterplace Park. (READ MORE)

The LaSalle Square structure, the larger of the two, is a six-story, 139,128-square-foot Class A office building. One Empire Plaza is a six-story, 99,648-square-foot Class B space. The purchase prices were not disclosed.

Berkeley Vice President of Asset Management Steven R. Brooks said in a Tuesday statement that the buildings’ proximity to Interstate 95, and the “lack of available blocks of space in downtown Providence, will benefit Berkeley as we reposition the assets and begin marketing space to tenants.”

Berkeley Investments Inc. is a real estate investment, development and asset-management company focusing on office, R&D and industrial properties. For more information, visit www.berkinv.com.

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, a nonprofit company insuring more than 670,000 individuals statewide, is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Additional information is available at www.bcbsri.com.