PHOENIX, ARIZONA – NAI Horizon’s Church Realty Solutions practice led by Thomas Smith, represented the seller, the buyer, and a new landlord in the $1.425 million investment sale and long-term lease of Celebration Lutheran Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Smith, a Senior Vice President with NAI Horizon, represented the seller – off of a referral from Earle Shroyer of Realty Executives – Celebration Lutheran Church of Peoria, and the buyer, a private investment partnership from Phoenix.

The property is located at 8726 W. Olive Ave., in Peoria.

In a separate transaction, Smith represented the new owner in a long-term lease totaling in excess of $500,000. Calvary Chapel Arrowhead was looking to move its church to a more dynamic and capable set of facilities while remaining in Peoria.

Smith assists and serves churches in acquiring new buildings, in leasing part or all of their existing facilities, supports owner churches in creating new revenue sources from partial and/or part time leasing of their facilities, creates strategies to repurpose buildings to accommodate places of worship, consolidates, and assists with the sale and disposition of properties and facilities for churches of all sizes and styles. Smith also brings in smaller churches to sometimes share space on off-sabbath days at market rental rates

“Another option for a struggling church that is facing diminishing congregational growth is a sale leaseback in which a church sells its property, banks its equity or uses it to rebuild ministries, and then leases the property back from the new owner/landlord,” Smith said. “This is a message that is being heard in church real estate but not acted on often enough to date.

“The strategy is to bring in another church entity as buyer or a specific investor profile that will encourage a challenged church to look to achieve a strategic transaction known as a sale leaseback. The more traditional approach to capturing inflated equity in a church facility is to sell and seek to either lease or buy a smaller facility thus lowering expenses while recapitalizing a church’s financial position,” Smith said.

Built in the 1994, the 6670 SF property features traditional church architecture – a sanctuary, kitchen, offices, a conference room, restrooms, storage room, and classrooms. There are also peaceful fellowship areas outside and inside the main building. Additionally, a vacant piece of land totaling more than 2 acres was included in the sale transaction.

“For me, the Church Realty Solutions practice is part business and part ministry and serves as my driving purpose to create and deliver world-class professional real estate services to communities of faith,” Smith said.

Janel Wangsness with Keyser represented the Calvary Chapel Arrowhead tenant who already have seen new congregants and made improvements to the existing facilities.

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA ‒ After eight years working for a commercial landscaping company in the Valley, Fernando Torres found himself at a career crossroads – remain in a successful and lucrative position or take a leap of faith and go into business for himself.

His “aha moment” occurred in a most unconventional place – the bathroom at his Scottsdale home. Torres, President of CimeX Control Pest Management, explains the moment.

“My former employer had a niche pest control component,” he said. “I helped them out, so I had to be licensed. I kept the license for three years. Then one day I’m taking a shower, trying to figure out my next career move. What do I see but a cockroach. For some reason it hit me, ‘pest control.’ I told my wife. She said ‘I think that’s what you need to do.’ I was scared to start my own business. But then she told me, ‘We’re doing it.’”

CimeX Control Pest Management is celebrating its 5-year anniversary. It has moved into a larger space and has added new employees. More importantly, it has sparked a true entrepreneurial fire in Torres.

“Our growth has been organic,” Torres, 47, said proudly from his company office at 7652 E. Greenway Road, in Scottsdale. “I had some connections from my old job. I’m not a corporate kind of guy, so it was mainly by word of mouth that I let people know I was in business for myself.

“I would talk to commercial building managers and take them to lunch. ‘Just give me one building,’ I would tell them, and I will show you. I don’t have a sales pitch. I educate. Here’s how I can help you. Then it began to snowball,” he said.

Torres and his wife and co-founder, Ann Torres, launched CimeX in July 2017 when the LLC went live. Torres, working out of his home, bought a new truck and a backpack and took his first job on September 5. “It was just me and the truck,” he said.

The company did about $25,000 in revenue for the last four months of the year.

“A lot of friends were giving me business,” he said. “The fact that we actually launched the company was really cool.”

By 2018 CimeX was experiencing rapid growth. By the summer he couldn’t sustain it by himself. The money was rolling in but he didn’t have a life.

“My wife said, ‘Do you want to be self-employed or do you want to be an entrepreneur,” he recalled.

He hired his first employee. He was now working out of a storage bin. Revenue increased to $225,000 in his first year.

Company growth continued in 2019 with the addition a second employee and a move to an even bigger storage bin. The company had two trucks on the road. More important, Torres was now able to run the company, although he did continue to service some clients. The year ended with revenue surpassing $450,000.

Another employee joined the company in 2020, when revenue reached $700,000. Clients now included industry heavyweights Amazon, Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE, Prologis, Lincoln Property Company, and others. In 2021 Torres hired another employee and added an office manager, who worked from home. Revenue ballooned to $840,000.

“At this point, we really started to grow quickly,” he said. “People were now promoting the company; we also picked up some condominium projects providing termite control services.”

Torres sits confidently behind his desk at the company’s new location, tucked away among an array of businesses in the shadow of Scottsdale Airpark. He employs four fulltime techs, and the office manager now actually sits in the office.

What’s next for Ann and Fernando Torres and CimeX?

“We are on track to realize $1.1 million in revenue this year,” he said. “It’s going to be exciting to use have those seven figures in our books. The next 5 years? I don’t want to grow too big. I want to create a business that treats employees the way I always wanted to be treated when I was one.”

CimeX has already branched out with work in Casa Grande and Maricopa. Torres said he is eyeing the Tucson market, since many of his Valley clients have property there as well. His plan is to buy a small pest control company with a name and presence in Tucson and rebrand it. In the next three years he would also like to buy his own commercial building and lease out the extra space.

“I don’t want to be the biggest, I want to be the best,” he said.

Torres recently joined industry group IREM Greater Phoenix. He wants to make sure CimeX gives back to the community and participated in the annual Brokers for Kids fund-raising event in Scottsdale.

The name of the company? Cimex is a genus of insects that includes bed bugs. Torres said his wife had one request when they were selecting a graphic artist to design a logo.

“Ann said she didn’t want a bug on the company logo,” she said with a laugh. To learn more about CimeX Control Pest Management visit cimexcontrol.com.

TUCSON, ARIZONA – Tucson-based, Apollo Gardens (Sukhbinder and Jasbir Khangura) purchased 61.95 acres of industrial land at 6701 S Wilmot Road in Tucson and for $4.5 million ($1.67 PSF).

The I-2 zoned property is adjacent to the Port of Tucson and has the potential for a rail spur.

The 3 industrial buildings on the property were obsolete and given no value. The buyers purchased the land for construction of a cold storage facility and construction of other industrial use buildings for sale and for lease.

Frank Arrotta and Michael Gross with Tucson Realty and Trust represented the sellers, Antonio and Diane Marie Cimetta also of Tucson.  Pat Welchert of Alpha Commercial Real Estate Services represented the buyer.

For more information, Arrotta and Gross can be reached at 520.577.7000. Welchert should be contacted at 520.360.9394.

To learn more, see RED Comp #9832.