Irvine city officials have acted as though it’s a fait accompli, but regulatory filings of Broadcom Corp. continue to suggest that a move of the chipmaker’s headquarters to a new office development at Orange County Great Park is not set in stone.
Broadcom’s latest annual report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission at the end of January, mentioned the company’s ongoing negotiations with regard to its office space in Irvine, where it leases about 920,000 square feet of space, as well as its other locations.
The company’s space at University Research Park in Irvine has, according to the annual report, “lease terms that expire at various dates through 2017.
“In light of these lease term expirations, we are currently evaluating future facility options in Orange County.”
That lack of clarity contrasts with statements by Irvine Mayor Steven Choi, who said in December that he was “delighted that [Broadcom has] committed to locating their new headquarters on Five Point Communities’ land near the Great Park.”
Broadcom declined at that time to confirm such a deal was in place.
An amended lease filed as an attachment to the chipmaker’s annual report also suggests Broadcom has a little more time to come to a decision on its office space needs than previously thought and that it is still considering other options in Irvine besides Great Park.
The amended lease deal, which is between Broadcom and its current landlord, Newport Beach-based Irvine Company, was struck last February. It gives Broadcom the ability to extend its current lease for two one-year periods, the second of which would end in May 2019.
A decision on whether to make an extension beyond mid-2017 must be made by the end of this May, according to the document.
The amended lease also notes that Broadcom has explored building a headquarters on land owned by Irvine Co. known as “planning area 17,” a vacant parcel next to the Laguna Altura housing community.
Apartment Update
The Feb. 3 real estate column noted that Highlands Ranch, Colo.-based UDR Inc. had taken over ownership of the land at the Pacific City development in Huntington Beach that’s slated for apartment construction.
A price tag for the roughly 17 acres UDR bought from Miami-based Crescent Heights for 516 apartments wasn’t known at the time, but it has since been disclosed: $78 million.
Big-Time Buys
Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Advisors has kicked off the New Year with a pair of blockbuster purchases whose combined value tops $350 million.
In Bellevue, Wash., an affiliate of the active real estate investor paid $186.4 million for a pair of offices and an adjoining parking structure on Northeast Eighth Street, according to regulatory filings.
The 16-story Plaza Center tower and the 10-story U.S. Bank Plaza total about 490,000 square feet and were bought by the company’s KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT, a nontraded real estate investment trust.
Boston-based Beacon Capital Partners, which paid a reported $156 million for the buildings in 2007, sold them in a deal that closed last month.
They were about 81% leased at the time and bring in nearly $10 million in rents annually, according to KBS.
KBS and its affiliates now own more than 1.5 million square feet of office space in Seattle and its suburbs. The company paid nearly $80 million for another office campus in Bellevue in 2012.
This month another KBS nontraded REIT disclosed it was under contract to buy a 22-story office in Salt Lake City, at 222 Main St.
The 427,000-square-foot building is expected to trade hands for $170.5 million and is being acquired by the company’s KBS Real Estate Investment Trust III affiliate.
The 5-year-old building is described as Salt Lake City’s first high-rise built to environmentally friendly standards and is 85% leased. It brings in about $10.4 million in rents annually, with Goldman Sachs being its largest tenant.
It was built by Chicago-based Hamilton Partners for a reported $125 million.
