An office in Cypress that serves as the regional headquarters for a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc., one of the country’s largest healthcare companies, has traded hands as part of a four-building portfolio sale valued at $122.3 million.
American Realty Capital Healthcare Trust Inc., a New York-based owner and operator of healthcare properties, recently completed the purchase of 5701 Katella Ave., a five-story office near the intersection of Valley View Street and Katella.
The 210,000-square-foot building is the largest office in Cypress, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
UnitedHealth occupies the entire building on a lease that runs through mid-2017, according to brokerage data.
The managed care company is the largest employer in Cypress, with an estimated 2,500 employees there.
The building was the most expensive of the four offices that traded hands in the deal between ARC Healthcare and the seller, an affiliate of Oak Brook, Ill.-based Inland American Real Estate Trust Inc.
5701 Katella sold for about $69 million, or a little less than $329 per square foot on an allocated basis, according to CoStar records.
It’s believed to be the most expensive single-building office sale in North Orange County this year.
American Realty also bought two buildings in Wisconsin, and another in Indianapolis, as part of its deal with Inland American; the four properties combine for 610,700 square feet.
Each of the properties serves as regional headquarters for UnitedHealthcare Services Inc., a subsidiary of Minnetonka, Minn-based UnitedHealth Group, according to the buyer.
The four buildings, on a combined basis, bring in annual rents of nearly $10 million, according to regulatory filings.
It’s the first Orange County purchase for ARC Healthcare, a nontraded real estate investment trust.
The investor’s adviser, American Realty Capital Healthcare Advisors LLC, is headed by Thomas D’Arcy, who served as chief executive of Grubb & Ellis Co. when the commercial real estate brokerage was based in Santa Ana.
The 5701 Katella sale is the second notable transaction in the past month involving an office that’s fully leased to UnitedHealth Group, which is estimated to employ 1,400 workers in Orange County besides the regional headquarters staff in Cypress.
The company expanded its local presence in 2005 when it bought Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. in a deal valued at nearly $8 billion.
Last month saw 2300 Main St.—a five-story building in Irvine that runs 132,000 square feet and is fully leased to UnitedHealth Group—bought by Hines Global REIT Inc., a nontraded real estate investment trust managed by Houston-based Hines Interests LP.
Hines paid about $38.2 million, or about $289 per square foot, for the Irvine office, which is leased to UnitedHealth under a long-term deal.
Other large local buildings fully leased to UnitedHealth include 5995 Plaza Drive, a five-story, 104,000-square-foot office in Cypress that’s a few blocks from the just-sold 5701 Katella office.
Records show UnitedHealth having a lease at the building that runs through 2018.
The 5995 Plaza office was put up for sale earlier this year with an asking price of $23.5 million, but the building is no longer on the market. It remains in the portfolio of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Healthcare Trust of America Inc., which has owned the property since 2008.
Healthcare Trust’s executive team also counts has ties to Grubb & Ellis. Scott Peters, a former chief executive of Grubb, now heads the healthcare property investor, which originally was an investment offshoot of Grubb.
