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Construction, Recent Buys Priority for Irvine Co. Office Chief

It’s a great time to be Richard “Rick” Gilchrist, the recently named head of The Irvine Company’s office division.

Rents are rising, buildings are full and tenants are looking for office construction to wrap up, just as the former president and co-chief executive of Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties Inc. takes over the top office spot at Orange County’s largest landlord.

The OC, San Diego and western Los Angeles office markets are “as fundamentally strong as I’ve ever seen,” Gilchrist said.

Gilchrist comes on board at a time when the Irvine Co. has several office developments in the works, and recently has made some big acquisitions.

The Irvine Co. made official last week what the Business Journal had previously reported: Gilchrist’s appointment as president of the Irvine Co.’s office unit, replacing William “Bill” Halford.

Halford left the Irvine Co. earlier this year to take over the top spot at Newport Beach-based developer Bixby Land Co.

Gilchrist shrugged off concerns about OC’s mortgage industry, which has cut hundreds of workers and put hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space on the sublease market.

OC office vacancy was a historically low 6% in the first quarter, down from 9.5% a year earlier, according to CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.

“In my book, that’s fully leased,” he said.

So, don’t expect to see Gilchrist usher in a period of upheaval at the Irvine Co., which owns about 400 office buildings. Most are in OC, with some properties in San Diego, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.

“Major change is not necessary,” Gilchrist said. “I view my role as one that incrementally adds value to the company over time.”

Gilchrist is set to oversee leasing, operations, marketing and financing for the office unit.

Some local real estate insiders speculated the Irvine Co. was looking for someone that had a strong administrative background to run the division.

But Gilchrist said he’s found that the company’s office unit already was organized and managed “like the best public or private companies out there.”

Gilchrist, 60, has worked as a consultant for the Irvine Co. for more than a month. He’s set to assume his full-time position on July 6.

He’ll oversee the Irvine Co.’s various office developments, including the two-tower, 20-40 Pacific office complex going up at the Irvine Spectrum. The towers will total 625,000 square feet, with construction under way.

Work also has started on the 231,178-square-foot office high-rise at the Irvine Co.’s recently acquired Irvine Center Towers near John Wayne Airport.

The Irvine Co. picked up Irvine Center Towers earlier this year for an estimated $325 million. The four-building complex came with rights to build a fifth tower.

The Irvine Co. also is planning to build a sixth high-rise office building at its Jamboree Center office complex in Irvine. The proposed 12-story building could have up to 150,000 square feet of office space.

In all, the Irvine Co. has about 2.2 million square feet of office construction under development.

The company also has been active on the office acquisition front. Earlier this year, the Irvine Co. closed on the buy of two high-rise office buildings in San Diego for a reported $450 million.

The buys included San Diego’s marquee One America Plaza.

Right off the bat, Gilchrist will focus on integrating the company’s recently acquired office buildings with its development and leasing of buildings going up, according to the company.

At Maguire, Gilchrist oversaw growth through building acquisitions and development. He also led the company’s initial public offering in 2003.

Gilchrist left Maguire at the beginning of the year.

Prior to Maguire, Gilchrist was chief executive of Alexandria, Va.-based Commonwealth Atlantic Properties from 1997 to 2001.

There, he managed the planning and approval process for one of the East Coast’s biggest projects, an 11 million-square-foot development called Potomac Yard.

Earlier, Gilchrist founded CommonWealth Partners, which provided advisory services and invested in real estate projects with the California Public Employees Retirement System.

Gilchrist is a former lawyer in Los Angeles and a founder of Santa Monica-based law firm Gilchrist & Rutter PC.

He is chairman of the Whittier College Board of Trustees, where he received a bachelor of arts degree.

Gilchrist earned a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
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