Cresa Partners of Orange County LP, one of the area’s largest brokerages exclusively representing tenants, is making some changes to its local management as its parent company is eyeing more international business.
The brokerage, whose local office is in Newport Beach, has brought on Patrick Murphy, a longtime local real estate executive, as its new managing director.
Murphy will oversee Cresa’s Newport Beach office, which has about 35 brokers and some 55 total employees. He’ll also oversee Cresa’s Inland Empire office, which has another five or so brokers and is looking to expand.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Murphy worked for Newport Beach’s Koll Company, where he leased more than 6 million square feet of office space and helped sell more than $1 billion worth of office buildings.
After Koll, Murphy helped start the California operations of New Jersey’s Gale Company, which acquired more than $300 million worth of properties and developed another 2 million square feet of space during his eight years there.
In 2004, Murphy founded WM Capital Group LLC, a Newport Beach developer that focuses on buying distressed debt in California, Arizona, and Montana. That company’s still active.
Cresa was OC’s largest tenant brokerage in 2010, working on more than $480 million worth of leases and sales, according to the Bus-iness Journal’s April list of commercial brokers.
Recent deals the company’s been involved in include leases for Sunwest Bank, Disc Sports and Spine Center and Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.
Expectations of more growth are behind the hiring of Murphy, according to officials.
The two prior co-managing directors of the Newport Beach office, Jeff Manley and Ken Ward, had been running the local office as “player-coaches,” according to Murphy.
Now, they’ll be turning more of their attention to brokering deals, and passing on management duties to Murphy.
The moves come as Cresa is looking to grab more international business. The company recently signed a deal to work with Savills PLC, a London-based real estate adviser that does much of its work in Asia and Europe.
The partnership should help Cresa better represent local companies that have global operations when they’re looking for commercial real estate in overseas markets, officials said.
Medical Device Lease
St. Jude Medical Inc., the third largest maker of heart valves with operations in OC, has renewed a lease for its Irvine offices near John Wayne Airport.
The local operations of Minnesota’s St. Jude recently re-upped leases for a pair of buildings on Morse Avenue near Von Karman Avenue, according to brokers for the Newport Beach office of Travers Realty.
The lease totals about 56,000 square feet and is an expansion of about 7,000 square feet for St. Jude, which has some 300 local employees.
Terms of the lease weren’t disclosed. It’s a six-year extension for the tenant, according to brokers.
The two buildings, at 2375 and 2382 Morse, include laboratories, manufacturing space and clean rooms, in addition to holding the company’s local headquarters.
Both offices are owned by individual investors.
St. Jude’s local operations—part of the company’s atrial fibrillation division—make catheters for diagnosing and treating atrial fibrillation, a common type of irregular heartbeat.
The business is a fast-growing part of St. Jude, which also makes heart valves, defibrillators and brain and spine devices.
St. Jude’s atrial fibrillation division saw sales of close to $700 million last year, about 13% of the company’s total revenue.
Travers Realty’s Randall Parker and Stacy Garcia represented St. Jude in the leases.
$14M Industrial Buy
Irvine-based real estate investor CIP Real Estate has paid $14 million for a trio of industrial properties in Riverside and Los Angeles counties that total 188,000 square feet.
The largest is the Indiana Business Park, a 150,000-square-foot industrial park in Riverside.
CIP’s Southern California portfolio now is about 1.5 million square feet of office and industrial space. CIP officials said they’ll remain active buyers of industrial buildings for the rest of the year.
The three latest properties were bought from Cerritos-based Union Development Co.
CIP bought the buildings in a venture with Chicago real estate investment firm Blue Vista Capital Partners. It’s their second deal together.
Autism Event
Barry Saywitz, president of Newport Beach-based commercial brokerage Saywitz Co., is hosting his third annual “An Evening for Autism” event on Saturday (see Calendar, page 36).
The tropical-themed event, held at Saywitz’s Newport Beach home, benefits families affected by autism. Charities involved include ACT Today, the Autism Society of America, Easter Seals Southern California and Newport Mesa School District’s Autism Programs.
The event includes food, music, celebrity guests and auctions. Tickets are $150 per person. For details on the event and sponsorships, see www.aneveningforautism.com.
