The Veterans Affairs clinic being built in north Eugene was recently listed for sale even though construction won’t be completed for another couple of months.

Earlier this week, the 123,501-square-foot, two-story building was listed for sale for $65.3 million on LoopNet, an online commercial real estate listing service.

Curiously, as of Thursday morning, LoopNet said the property was off the market.

The California developers and Net Lease Capital Advisors, the Northeast firm linked to the listing, aren’t saying what’s going on. But real estate brokers familiar with these large government projects say it’s not unusual for developers to use firms like Net Lease Capital to set up structured investment vehicles to help finance a project, or for developers to promptly sell the clinics when they’re completed.

“These clinics are worth a lot because they’re backed by a federal lease,” said Mindy Berman, managing director of JLL, a Chicago real estate firm.

“It would not be unexpected for this developer in this market — or anywhere — to sell the building or extract value through financing,” she said.

Jim Bolton, an executive with Net Lease Capital Advisors in Nashua, N.H., the firm linked to the LoopNet listing, did not return a phone call from The Register-Guard.

Net Lease Capital describes itself on its web site as a real estate investment and advisory firm specializing in single tenant net lease properties.

Steve Moreland, one of the owners of the California-based development group building the Eugene clinic, referred questions to his brother, Terry Moreland, who did not return messages from The Register-Guard.

The Veterans Affairs department contracted with Moreland Corp., of Bakersfied, Calif., to develop the clinic and lease it to the VA for 20 years. A Moreland company, Oregon VA1 LLC, bought the 14-acre Eugene site in September 2013 for an undisclosed price from Guard Publishing Co., the publisher of The Register-Guard.

The VA will pay rent of $4 million a year, according to a copy of the lease obtained from the VA by The Register-Guard through a public records request.

Longtime Eugene real estate broker Clayton Walker, who said he has no information about this particular project, said it’s not uncommon for developers to develop the properties and then sell them when they’re completed.

“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” he said. “That’s what commercial builders do — build a building, get it leased up — in this case they have a long-term lease with the federal government, which is very desirable.”

VA outpatient clinics in Jacksonville, Fla., and in Oceanside, Calif., for example, each were sold about a year after they were built, according to property records of those recent sales.

After a lengthy site selection process, the VA chose the site at Chad Drive and Old Coburg Road in Eugene. The VA broke ground in May 2014 and Steve Moreland, a representative for the development group, said in June 2015 that crews were working to finish the building by August 28. VA officials have said it will take several months after construction is completed to install equipment and technology, and the clinic is expected to welcome its first patients in January.

VA officials have said the clinic would open with about 120 employees — including about 70 transferred from the VA’s existing Eugene site — and eventually employ 300 people.

The clinic, which will offer a range of outpatient services, from optometry to podiatry, is expected to receive 93,000 patient visits a year.

If the clinic truly is for sale, there would be “huge interest,” predicts Brian Saal, an executive with JLL’s government investor services, based in Wash. D.C.

“In my opinion, these are some of the best quality investment assets across the country,” Saal said.

“They’re very high quality,” he said. “The quality almost without fail is the result of an exhaustive competition. Sometimes they have preselected locations that the government has vetted where they strategically want the building. They’re usually in major cities in good locations. They’re very well designed buildings. They have high quality materials. A lot of money has been put into them. … There’s a lot of infrastructure to be world-class facility for veterans.”

Saal said there’s been fewer of these projects in the pipeline, “so there really is high demand and low supply, particularly in this low-interest rate environment.”

“It’s a real high quality, coveted investment that a lot of folks, whether they specialize in government leased assets or not, would really like to get their hands on,” he said.

If ownership of the building changed hands it probably wouldn’t have much impact on the veterans receiving services at the clinic, Saal said.

“It would only matter to them if the building isn’t maintained very well,” he said.

But owners of these facilities have a good track record for maintaining them, Saal said.

“VA (clinics) are owned by folks that are major government buyers … that understand the responsibilities and take good care of their people and their properties,” he said.

Follow Sherri on Twitter @sburimcdonald . Email sherri@registerguard.com .