CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., Orange County’s largest commercial real estate brokerage, is expanding its flagship office in Newport Beach and adjusting its staff in Anaheim as part of a local restructuring.
The Los Angeles-based company said it is planning to more than double the size of its Bayview Corporate Center offices, which serve as its West Coast operations hub.
CB Richard Ellis just signed a 87,249-square foot-lease at Bayview, at 3501 Jamboree Road near the Corona del Mar (73) Freeway.
The company had been leasing about 35,000 square feet at the building, which is owned by Salt Lake City’s SK Hart Management LLC.
The expansion at the Bayview building is part of an overall consolidation of Orange County operations for CB Richard Ellis, which counts about 100 brokers among its total of about 350 employees here.
The consolidation calls for about half of the 40 brokers and 40 or so other workers at its Anaheim branch to move to the Newport Beach office.
A smaller Newport Beach office on MacArthur Boulevard also is set to move to the Bayview building once renovations are completed. That’s expected sometime this summer.
More than 300 employees are expected at the expanded Bayview office once all of the moves are done.
“This is about us trying to create a flagship operation for the company in Southern California, (putting) all our business lines under one roof,” said Jeff Moore, senior managing director for CB Richard Ellis’ OC operations.
In addition to core brokerage operations, the Newport Beach office will house the company’s asset services, project management, debt and equity finance, valuation and global corporate services divisions.
Steve Swerdlow, who heads up CB Richard Ellis’ western division as well as its Latin America operations, is based out of the office.
THE NEWS:
CB Richard Ellis more than doubles space at Bayview Corporate Center in Newport Beach
BACKGROUND:
Longtime leading commercial brokerage here, with more than $2.4 billion in deals annually
WHAT’S AHEAD:
About half of brokers, support staff in Anaheim and a smaller Newport Beach office relocating to Bayview. Company looking for smaller space in Anaheim to serve North County.
The changes are being made to keep the company atop the field of brokers in the area and “amplify our brand,” among other reasons, he said.
The expansion of the Bayview building offers the company room for additional growth, although that’s not an immediate likelihood, Moore said.
“Last year we definitely saw an increase in activity,” said Moore, who also oversees the company’s retail brokerage operations in Southern California. “We’re not expecting robust growth (in 2011), but we’re certainly bullish on the market.”
On a combined basis, CB Richard Ellis’ local offices have long been the biggest brokerage operations in OC.
In 2009, the company’s Newport Beach offices reported working on about $1.6 billion of area leases and sales, while the Anaheim office reported another $800 million of business, according to Business Journal data.
Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co., the next largest brokerage here, worked on $1.5 billion worth of deals last year. No. 3 Newport Beach’s Voit Real Estate Services worked on $1.3 billion worth.
At the peak of the market, CB Richard Ellis’ two offices here worked on nearly $3 billion worth of deals annually.
CB Richard Ellis also was ranked as the largest commercial property manager in the area as of last year, managing more than 50 million square feet of commercial space in the area.
The company is on the lookout for a new, smaller office in the Anaheim area, according to Moore. Brokers remaining in the office primarily will be focused on North County transactions.
That office will continue to be overseen by managing director Jeff Osborn, who also heads up the company’s office division in Southern California.
The Newport Beach expansion is the second significant lease signed by SK Hart at its Bayview Corporate Center office complex in recent months.
Late last year, the real estate investor signed Marina del Rey-based Disc Sports and Spine Center, an orthopedic surgery practice, to a 35,000-square-foot lease at the property.
The two deals will help fill up a considerable amount of empty space at the 332,000-square-foot Bayview complex, which still is more than a third empty, according to CoStar Group Inc. data.
SK Hart paid $53 million in 2009 for the Bayview complex, formerly the headquarters of failed savings and loan operator Downey Financial Corp. The sale was the largest office deal in the country overseen by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The FDIC seized Downey’s assets in late 2008 after the company’s thrift failed amid bad loans.
The two-building Bayview complex is getting a multimillion dollar renovation, officials said. CB Richard Ellis, which signed a 10-year lease at the complex, said the property’s lobby and systems are getting renovated by the new owner, among other upgrades.
Financial terms of CB Richard Ellis’ new lease weren’t disclosed.
The company—whose brokers also handle leasing for the property—has temporarily moved some employees over to its MacArthur Boulevard office while the renovations to its space get completed. Gensler Architects is handling the design of the new offices, officials said.
CB Richard Ellis’ Dean Chandler, Scott Kenny and Garrett Ellis represented their company in the lease. Jeff Morgan, Jake Stickel and Carol Trapani, also of CB Richard Ellis, represented the landlord.
