A legendary medtech company is scheduled to leave its longtime facilities in this northern Orange County city.
In its place, Brea is set to get its first Costco.
Brea’s most prominent property owner and investor, Dwight Manley, has acquired the Beckman Coulter Campus for $140 million.
“The Beckman Coulter Campus is one of those historic and iconic properties not just in Brea but all of Orange County,” said Jeffrey Cole, executive vice chairman at Cushman & Wakefield, which represented both the buyer and the seller.
The deal signals a big change for Beckman Coulter, which can rightfully claim a major role in establishing Orange County as a hub of medical technology companies. The company, which has 400 employees in Orange County, ranks No. 2 on the Business Journal’s annual list of medical diagnostics and testing companies.
Beckman Coulter, whose lease expires in 2028, currently uses the campus as its global headquarters for research, development, and manufacturing of biomedical testing products. The company is a unit of Danaher Corp., which has a $155 billion market cap (NYSE: DHR).
“Beckman Coulter has been evaluating future facility needs as part of our longterm business planning, and we do expect to relocate our Brea-based teams when our current lease expires,” company spokesperson Jeff Tarmy said in an email statement to the Business Journal.
“While we are not yet in a position to announce a new location, we are actively assessing options that will best support our associates and the continued growth of our business.”
Mr. Brea
Manley, an avid coin collector who once represented Dennis Rodman as a sports agent, told the Business Journal that he has an agreement in place with Costco for the site. The City Council recently approved a long-term sales tax rebate aimed at attracting the wholesale retail giant.
“I now have a signed lease with Costco,” said Manley, whose nickname is Mr. Brea. “It’s confidential. It’s very proprietary, but it is signed, and the process will go forward now.”
Single-family homes on 15 acres are also planned for the 34-acre site, which had more than a dozen other bidders.
“This is the biggest single deal I’ve ever done,” Manley said. “I think it’s a great thing in the long term for the community.”
Besides Cole, other Cushman & Wakefield executives in the deal were Senior Director Nico Napolitano and Associate Kristen Schottmiller.
The five-building industrial campus, located at 200 and 250 S. Kraemer Boulevard, was sold by Houston-based Hines and Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management.
Hines, with funds managed by Oak Tree, has owned the building since acquiring it for $115 million in 2018, according to CoStar.
The 34-acre site—about the size of 25 football fields—includes three industrial buildings and two office buildings totaling about 576,000 square feet.
The land deal closed in mid-January.
“The sale represents the continued trend in Orange County of higher and better uses for large attractive infill office sites that can be creatively redeveloped into new commercial and residential projects that are highly desired and needed by cities today,” Cole told the Business Journal.
JLL’s Capital Markets team comprised of Senior Managing Director Matt Stewart, Directors Kellan Liem and Serge Sarkissian and Associates John Rankin and Kyle White represented Manley and secured the $112 million in acquisition financing from funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group.
Landing Costco
Currently, Brea residents must drive several miles to La Habra, Fullerton or Yorba Linda to shop at a Costco. Manley said Costco has been looking for a location in the city for about 20 years without success.
“They’ve wanted to be in Brea and have never been able to find a location,” he said. Manley said that Hines and Oak Tree had been negotiating with the retailer, but when no deal materialized, the landowners decided to put the property up for sale last year.
As a Brea resident and owner of several downtown commercial properties, he decided to bid on the property.
“When I got involved, when it became a competitive situation to try to acquire the property, at that time I learned of Costco’s interest,” he said.
Manley’s plan for the Beckman Coulter site splits the project into two sections: about 18.5 acres in the north for Costco and 15 acres in the south for single-family residential homes that will be built by Lennar.
Cushman’s Cole told the Business Journal that Manley’s proposal beat out higher bidders who suggested mixed-use housing and commercial developments, office parks or an industrial distribution center for the site.
“It was a very high-profile competitive bid with 18 offers on the property and multiple rounds,” said Cole, adding that Manley’s bid ultimately prevailed due to his proposal and relationship with the city of Brea.
“I was able to create a win-win situation to achieve Costco being in Brea and a successful transaction of buying the land,” said Manley.
In an email to the Business Journal, a Costco representative stated that it is company policy not to comment on “future Costco warehouses or construction until we are ready to share details about the new location.”
Costco Warehouses
Founded in 1976 initially as Price Club, Costco has grown to more than 900 locations worldwide, generating $270 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025.
California is Costco’s largest market, with about 142 locations, 13 of which are in Orange County.
If approved and built, a Costco in Brea would be a major change for the city’s retail scene and landscape.
Manley told the city that the property could generate tens of millions of dollars in property taxes and taxable sales each year, which go straight to the general fund, and create 350 full-time and 350 part-time jobs.
Each warehouse, on average, logs $192 million in annual revenue, according to Costco’s 2025 annual report.
Brea is counting on that, and more. According to a city staff report, a Costco could generate more than $200 million in annual retail sales in the first five years.
In December, the Brea City Council approved a 50-year sales tax rebate agreement with Manley.
Under the terms of the agreement, the city would reimburse Manley an estimated $83.6 million in local sales tax to offset the development costs of the $106 million project.
The city expects to collect more than $50 million in local sales tax over the 50-year term. In this deal, Manley will collect about 60% of city’s sales tax while the city will get the rest.
At a Dec. 16 council meeting, it was suggested that a retailer like Costco would be a much-needed boost to city revenue.
“We need sales tax money,” said Councilman Steven Vargas during the meeting. “Of course, I would like 100% (of the city’s sales tax from Costco), but with all of these large corporations going out, we see even getting 40% is better than nothing.”
As part of the deal, 5% of the developer’s shares will be redirected to the Brea Senior Center to fund programs and services, city staff said.
Manley said high land values and development costs made a public-private partnership necessary, a method other cities have also used to attract Costco.
“The only way this would work was a sales tax sharing agreement,” Manley said. “No property in Brea would make financial sense otherwise.”
A 165K-Sq. Ft. Building
Manley said the Costco site will have a lower density than similar projects, with about 165,000 square feet of building space and over 900 parking spaces.
This is more parking than nearby Costco locations, which should help reduce congestion and improve access, Manley said.
The Costco part of the site will need three existing buildings to be torn down, a process Manley said he’d manage. Once approvals are in place, Costco will build its own store.
“It’s a ground lease,” he said of his deal.
The proposed redevelopment still needs city approvals, including Planning Commission review, and there is no construction timeline yet.
Although some residents pushed back on Costco’s presence in Brea—citing traffic concerns, city budget deficit and the tax-sharing agreement—Manley said he understands the controversies.
“In my experience, there is no such thing as a project or a development or anything with change that has 100% community support,” said Manley.
“With that said, I’ve never seen so much positive feedback. Costco is so vital to so many people because of what they provide—affordable goods, medicine, gas and services. In today’s economy, in today’s world, every bit counts.”
The Legend of Arnold Beckman
Beckman Coulter can rightfully claim a major role in establishing Orange County as a hub of medical technology companies.
It was started by Arnold Beckman, who was a chemistry professor at Caltech when a former classmate asked him for a new way to measure the pH level for a Southern California lemon juice supplier.
Beckman thus invented the acidimeter, the forerunner of the modern pH meter. In 1935, he began his first company to sell the devices.
He went on to invent the Helipot to improve military radar, a microammeter to assess plutonium for the Manhattan project and an oxygen analyzer to improve the safety of submarines and high-altitude aircraft.
By the 1950s, he began switching to medical devices such as the Beckman Glucose Analyzer and the Beckman Protein Peptide Sequencer.
“By reducing the time to measure blood sugar levels from 30 minutes to three minutes, Beckman changed the game for diabetics,” according to “Orange County Inc.,” a 2016 book by Charles Martin on the history of Orange County’s most prominent businesses.
In the 1990s, Beckman made a series of acquisitions, including Coulter Corp. and changed its name. It was acquired in 2011 by Danaher Corp. for $6.8 billion.
Beckman, who has a high school named after him in Irvine, passed away at the age of 104 in 2004.
By the 1980s, “Beckman became the premier medical and diagnostic systems provider in the world,” Martin wrote.
“His donations and vision for education have shaped Orange County over the last four decades and have helped transform it into one of the most renowned economies in the world.”
– Peter J. Brennan
Costco Operates 13 Warehouses Across Orange County
• Cypress: 5401 Katella Ave. Cypress, CA. 90720
• Fountain Valley: 17900 New Hope St., Fountain Valley, CA 92708
• Fullerton: 900 S. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton, CA 92832
• Garden Grove: 11000 Garden Grove Blvd., Garden Grove, CA 92843
• Huntington Beach: 7562 Center Ave., Huntington Beach, CA 92647
• Irvine: 115 Technology Dr., Irvine, CA 92618
• Laguna Niguel: 27972 Cabot Rd., Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
• Laguna Niguel (Laguna Marketplace): 27220 Heather Ridge Rd., Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
• San Juan Capistrano: 33961 Doheny Park Rd., San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
• Tustin (The District at Tustin Legacy): 2700 Park Ave., Tustin, CA 92782
• Tustin (Tustin Ranch): 2655 El Camino Real, Tustin, CA 92782
• Westminster (Business Center): 13225 Beach Blvd., Westminster, CA 92683
• Yorba Linda: 22633 Savi Ranch Pkwy., Yorba Linda, CA 92887
—Joseph Pimentel
