Brea’s Beckman Coulter Inc. is moving ahead with plans to sell a massive Fullerton site that served as its headquarters for more than 50 years.
The maker of medical testing and research equipment has hired brokers to start marketing the 44-acre site for sale in what’s likely to be one of the largest real estate deals North Orange County’s seen in years.
Initial offers are expected in late August, according to Mitch Zehner, executive vice president for the Anaheim office of Newport Beach’s Voit Real Estate Services, which is handling the sale.
The site’s being marketed to institutional investors, developers and potential companies and business owners that might want to operate there, according to Zehner.
A buyer could redevelop all or part of the campus, which dates back to 1954.
“It’s one of the largest pieces of property in North Orange County that can be put to reuse that’s gone up for sale in years,” Zehner said.
Beckman, one of the county’s largest public companies by yearly revenue, moved its headquarters to neighboring Brea last year.
Market Conditions
The decision to sell the Fullerton site on Harbor Boulevard near Imperial Highway comes amid a local real estate market that’s seeing more sales versus a year earlier. But the market still is far off its go-go days of a few years ago.
“I wouldn’t want to have listed this a year ago,” Zehner said. “There’s a lot more investment money looking to get out there now.”
Beckman is aware of the state of local real estate, “but really there’s no downside” in marketing the site now, said Charles Pittman, vice president of global facilities for the company.
Still to be determined for the site: a sales price and how it could be redeveloped.
An asking price for the property hasn’t been set, according to Zehner. A price largely will be determined by what prospective buyers see as the redevelopment potential for the property,
A minimum price for the campus likely is in the $35 million range.
That assumes the property largely is seen as being for industrial use by a potential buyer. In that case, the land could sell in the $15 to $20 per square foot range, as have other older North County industrial properties that traded hands recently.
Other types of redevelopment, including homes, offices or stores, could put a price closer to $50 million or more.
The city of Fullerton has expressed a willingness to rezone the campus for other uses, including a mix of homes, stores or offices, according to Zehner.
“They want to be involved,” he said.
Zoning
The site now is zoned for office and industrial use. The campus has eight office, industrial and laboratory buildings, totaling about 600,800 square feet of space.
That includes 288,450 square feet of office space and nearly 45,000 square feet of lab and testing areas.
The existing buildings could appeal to another large company looking to relocate its headquarters to the site, according to brokers.
Stores for big retailers also could be built along the front of the property with industrial uses in the back, according to Zehner.
“It probably won’t be just one use,” he said.
Beckman has yearly sales of $3.75 billion and a recent market value of $4.2 billion. The company makes machines, chemicals and other supplies used by laboratories running tests for doctors as well as drug and medical researchers.
In early 2008, Beckman said it was consolidating operations by moving from Fullerton to a renovated company complex at Kraemer Boulevard and Imperial Highway in Brea.
The move was completed late last year.
Beckman spent more than $50 million on the move, according to Pittman. The entire process took about 18 months, he said.
The company expects to pay a heavy amount for environmental work on the old Fullerton campus. It recorded a $19 million charge in 2008 for estimated cleanup costs.
The company said in its last annual report that the actual cost could range from $10 million to $30 million.
Largely Empty
The Fullerton site now is largely vacant, except for a handful of employees who are expected to move later this summer, Pittman said.
Beckman employs about 2,000 people in OC.
The move marked a break from Beckman’s past—founder and local icon Arnold O. Beckman brought the company to Fullerton from South Pasadena in 1954.
The relocation to Brea was part of a restructuring led by Chief Executive Scott Garrett, who took over in 2005.
