Stadium Gateway Adds Countrywide, Others in the Works
By DANIEL D. WILLIAMS
Anaheim’s Stadium Gateway has landed an office of Calabasas-based Countrywide Home Loan Inc. and has more deals in the works, real estate sources say.
Countrywide has agreed to lease 44,000 square feet at the six-story, 270,000-square-foot class A building next to Edison International Field, sources said. Countrywide workers are set to move from an office outside Orange County to the entire fourth floor of Stadium Gateway, they said.
Details weren’t available last week but terms are believed to be comparable to the 10-year lease signed by New Horizons Worldwide Inc. earlier this year.
The for-profit school operator moved its 310 OC employees and headquarters from Santa Ana to 86,000 square feet at Stadium Gateway. New Horizons pre-leased 30% of Stadium Gateway, a $40 million project completed in August.
A unit of Toyota Motor Credit Corp. could be next to sign up for Stadium Gateway, sources said. The Toyota unit now works out of 2600 Michelson Drive in Irvine. A Toyota spokeswoman refuted the rumor, saying the company would stay in Irvine until midyear when it plans to vacate the roughly 19,000 square feet it has and move operations to Phoenix.
Some of the 60 Irvine employees could make the move to Arizona, while the rest would stay in OC at other Toyota offices.
The Countrywide lease and others said to be in the works are a win for Stadium Gateway’s developer, Summit Commercial Properties Inc., part of El Segundo-based real estate investor Highridge Partners Co. Mack-Cali Realty Corp., a New Jersey-based real estate investment trust, is a partner in the project.
“These deals show signs of strength in the market,” said Jerry Holdner, an analyst with Voit Commercial Brokerage Co. “It shows that companies are still looking for that high-image space, and that space is getting absorbed.”
Stadium Gateway is benefiting from being a new building in an area where class A space isn’t as prevalent as in the John Wayne Airport area, according to Chris Shea, a broker with the Irvine office of Transwestern Commercial Real Estate Services.
“It’s a back office market, and there’s always a need for back office tenants regardless of the economy,” Shea said. “You won’t have the shock or radical changes to the market that you seen in the Irvine area. The market offers a great location, economical lease rates and a good value for office users.”
The Central County area counts a class A vacancy rate of 11.1% and an average lease rate of $1.90 per square foot, according to Voit’s Holdner. That compares to the airport area’s 13.3% vacancy rate and lease rate of $2.65 per square foot.
“The history on Central County is that it’s hardest to lease traditionally,” Holdner said. “But during this last strong cycle, redevelopment received a boost.”
But Central County is taking its lumps in the downturn.
With Experian Information Solutions Inc.’s pending move out of the Block of Orange to a new headquarters being built in Costa Mesa, an additional 100,000 square feet is set to hit the market.
“New construction, always leave a vacancy in its wake,” Holdner said.
Ken White, a senior vice president with Summit Commercial, said in a recent interview that he sees Stadium Gateway full in the first quarter. White declined to offer names of any potential tenants. Brokers with Cushman & Wakefield Inc. have multiple leases at the goal line, he said.
Back office users and financial companies are among those in talks for space at Stadium Gateway, according to White.
Stadium Gateway’s large floor plates likely appealed to Countrywide, according to Tom Abel, a broker in the Anaheim office of CB Richard Ellis Services Inc. Back office tenants in particular seek out space on one floor so they don’t have to ride elevators to take care of business, he said.
“It’s a big advantage when you can take one floor at approximately 40,000 square feet instead of 20,000 square feet spread over two floors,” Abel said.
