A well-known office park has a new name, and new owner Rich Eychaner said the five-building property provides the city of Des Moines more opportunities to lure companies and office workers to the downtown area.

And MLK River Park – five buildings on 15 acres stretching from Southwest Third to Southwest Fifth streets in the Riverpoint area south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway – can benefit from Eychaner’s 300 MLK retail project with its planned blend of restaurants, taverns, rooftop patios and a fitness center. A portion of the property had been called the Southwest Fifth Street Office Park.

“The 300 MLK project is a huge boon for the office space,” Eychaner said.

On June 4, Eychaner wrapped up 18 months of negotiations to buy the properties for $5.1 million. It was a complicated process. The owners were represented by G.E. Capital Commercial Mortgage Corp. That means there were many interested parties to satisfy. Also involved were U.S. Bank, as trustee, and Key Bank, as special servicer.

The properties were part of Hubbell Realty Co.’s Riverpoint development. Hubbell allowed its mortgage on the properties to return to the lender in 2013, deciding that renegotiating the terms of a nonrecourse loan that had many investors wasn’t worth the trouble, President and CEO Rick Tollakson said at the time.

With the purchase, Eychaner is holding about 195,000 square feet of single-story office space with parking on site. The one building that has generated the most buzz had been occupied by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage at 525 S.W. Fifth St. The buzz was created when Wells Fargo abandoned building after expanding its campus on Mills Civic Parkway in West Des Moines.

“Wells hasn’t called, but we’d love to have them move back in,” Eychaner said.

It should be noted that the owners spent $435,000 on a new roof for the building.

At present, about 20 percent of the total office space at MLK River Park is occupied, Eychaner said, but he is not intimidated by the low number.

He credits the city of Des Moines with retaining and attracting office jobs. Think here of the commitments made by Principal Financial Group Inc., Wellmark Corp. and Nationwide Insurance Co., along with Kum & Go’s planned move to the Western Gateway. And it should be pointed out that before Merchants Bonding decided to move to West Des Moines, it sought first to build a new corporate headquarters in Des Moines, particularly south of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.

Downtown office vacancies have been on a downward trend over the last year, according to a report from Xceligent Inc. Vacancies among all classes of office buildings were at 15.8 percent at the end of the first quarter, down from 16.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014. The largest chunk of office space to fill in the first quarter was the 31,036 square feet that Whitfield and Eddy PLC leased in Hub Tower.

Eychaner plans to offer base lease rates of $5 per square foot, on a triple-net basis, with generous tenant improvement allowances. That figure is well below the lowest downtown lease rate of $8 per square foot, with the average for all classes of office properties at $15.95, according to the Xceligent report.

“If someone is looking for economical space, we have a tremendous opportunity to bring more office work,” Eychaner said.

The purchase of mostly vacant office space did not intimidate local lenders. Bank Iowa granted Eychaner an $8 million mortgage.

While Eychaner was changing flights in Chicago, he went into true marketing mode and rattled off, for the Business Record, a list of advantages to bringing office workers downtown. Most of the benefits highlighted proximity to downtown amenities, government buildings, hiking and biking trails, ice skating, the Court Avenue entertainment district, the East Village and, of course, his 300 MLK project.

“You start putting all of that together, and who has all of that stuff? It’s only in downtown Des Moines,” he said.