Jamison properties negotiating to buy MCI Center downtown.

AFTER buying the MCI Center in downtown Los Angeles a year ago, Cargill Inc. is close to flipping the property for a total of $200 million, according to sources close to the deal.

David Lee's Jamison Properties Inc. has agreed to pay about $160 million for the 678,000-square-foot office building at 700 Flower St., the Macy's Plaza retail center and a 3,000-space parking garage.

Additionally, Prudential Real Estate Investors and Portland, Ore.-based Dow Hotel Co. are buying the center's 485-room Hyatt Regency Los Angeles for about $40 million.

Both prospective buyers have signed letters of intent, but sources said the deals could still fall apart.

Citing confidentiality agreements, both Lee and Murray Dow, president of Dow Hotel, declined to comment. Secured Capital Corp., which is marketing the hotel component, declined to comment.

A completed sale would net Minnetonka, Minn.-based Cargill and its partner, Beverly Hills-based real estate services company Kennedy-Wilson Inc., nearly $75 million. They paid $124 million for the 2.5 million square foot downtown complex in November 2003.

Calls to Kennedy-Wilson, which is also marketing the property, weren't returned.

The price increase is partly a reflection of improved occupancy in the office building and a rebound in the downtown hotel market.

While managing the property, Kennedy-Wilson helped sign leases boosting occupancy in the 30-year-old office building, including a substantial lease with ImpreMedia LLC's Spanish language newspaper La Opinion.

Still, rents for the office building are around $2 a foot, less than the roughly $2.30 a foot asking rents for comparable space downtown. The retail center is nearly full and the large parking garage is profitable.

Dow's involvement with the hotel may finally end rumors of the property's prospective conversion into condominiums. It also means the property won't likely continue as a Hyatt, which doesn't franchise its brand to third-party operators.

The hotel's general manager, Colleen Kareti, has been reassigned to a Hyatt in Orange County. Kareti described the move as a promotion and said her departure wasn't tied to a possible sale.

Known as Broadway Plaza when opened in 1973, the mixed-use complex was renamed MCI Center when the telecommunications giant signed a long-term lease in the office tower in 1993. The retail component was renamed Macy's Plaza in 1996, the year after Federated Department Stores Inc. acquired the chain.

Staff reporter Andy Fixmer can be reached by phone at [phone], ext. 263, or by e-mail at [e-mail].