Oxford exec to lead Columbia Property Trust

An active real estate investment trust is making a change at the top.

Adam Frazier is to become president and CEO of Columbia Property Trust, effective Sept. 19, the company announced Tuesday. He will succeed Nelson Mills, who has served as CEO since 2012.

Frazier is moving from Oxford Properties Group, where he served as a vice president and head of New York for the privately held company. Frazier oversaw leasing, operations and development in the region.

The executive also spent seven years in leadership roles at Boston Properties, where he developed and executed the firm’s New York leasing program.

Mills will stay with Columbia as non-executive chairman of the company’s board of directors. No reason was given for the leadership change.

Columbia has been an active player in commercial real estate, particularly in New York City. Data on the company’s website say as of the end of March, it had 7.9 million square feet of rentable square footage under ownership or management.

The company is largely focused on office properties. While the bulk of its assets are in New York, the firm also has properties in San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C.

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Last year, PIMCO agreed to buy the REIT for $2.2 billion in a deal valued at $3.9 billion when considering debt. Columbia was previously considering an unsolicited bid from Arkhouse Partners, valued at roughly $2.24 billion.

The PIMCO acquisition closed at the end of last year.

Arguably Columbia’s most high-profile development is at 799 Broadway in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. In June, the company secured a $270 million refinancing package from Blackstone Mortgage Trust for the 12-story boutique office property.

Columbia completed construction on the 182,000-square-foot building in April. Tenants include Wellington Management, New Residential Investment Corporation and Bain Capital Ventures. As of the refinancing, the property was 70 percent leased.