The Irvine Ranch had no trouble keeping its crown as California’s busiest masterplanned community last year.
Irvine-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting LLC recently released its survey of the country’s largest masterplanned communities, ranking the 50 top sellers of 2013.
Projects on the Irvine Ranch—including Stonegate, Portola Springs, Cypress Village, Woodbury and Laguna Altura—reported 1,444 sales last year, placing it at the top in California and No. 2 nationwide, the same rankings it had a year ago.
Sales at the projects, overseen by Newport Beach-based Irvine Company, were up about 1% over 2012 levels, according to John Burns Real Estate.
“Buoyed by strong local economies and a great exchange rate, Asian buyers (excluding East Indian) comprised 53% of new home sales in Irvine,” the report said. “Schools were the number one attraction.”
Orange County also had the two best-selling masterplanned communities that opened in 2013, according to the report.
Rancho Mission Viejo, which opened in June, was reported to have ended the year with 360 sales, placing it No. 1 among communities less than a year old and No. 22 in the country among all projects.
Pavilion Park, the first community at Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine, was No. 2 among recently opened projects in terms of sales. The community, which opened in late September, had 245 sales last year, placing it at No. 38 in the country.
The Villages, a retirement community in central Florida, again was the country’s top-selling masterplanned community in 2013, with 3,419 sales.
The top 50 masterplanned communities in the country combined for 23,436 new home sales last year, a 12% increase over 2012, according to John Burns Real Estate.
The projects accounted for 5.4% of 2013 new-home sales in the country, according to the report.
Nikken Growth
Irvine’s version of Stark Industries is expanding its local presence.
Nikken Inc., a Japanese maker of health and nutrition products that has its U.S. headquarters in Irvine, recently bought a second area office, at 2 Corporate Park.
The 43,247-square-foot building, which sits on Jamboree Road near The District shopping center, sold for just less than $10.3 million, or about $237 per square foot.
JW Mitchell Co., which has had its headquarters at the building, sold the Irvine office.
Nikken will occupy about a third of the building for its own operations, with the remainder leased to other tenants for the time being, according to Jim deRegt, senior vice president and principal with Lee & Associates – Newport Beach Inc.
DeRegt and colleague Tom West represented JW Mitchell in the sale. CBRE Group Inc.’s Jeff Carr, Gregg Haly and Kenji Sakai represented Nikken.
Nikken acquired the building to help it expand its local operations, according to Carr.
Its main local office is at 52 Discovery, a 213,400-square-foot office in the Spectrum that fronts the Eastern (133) Toll Road. Nikken built the building in the late 1990s for a reported $30 million.
The building’s distinctive glass rotunda room has been featured in several movies, serving as the headquarters for the fictitious Stark Industries in 2008’s “Iron Man,” and as Globo Gym in 2004’s “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.”
Santa Ana Sale
Villa Santana, a 240-unit apartment complex on 17th Street in Santa Ana, has traded hands.
An affiliate of San Francisco-based Fowler Property Acquisitions LLC bought the property in mid-December, according to property records.
CoStar Group Inc. records show the complex selling for about $41.3 million, with the buyers getting a $30.5 million loan from Bank of America to help fund the purchase.
The property, at 2111 W. 17th St., was reported to be 96% leased at the time of the sale.
San Francisco-based BRE Properties Inc. sold the complex, one of a dozen it owned in Orange County as of last year, according to regulatory filings.
BRE valued the complex, which it bought in 1997, at $18.7 million as of last year, according to the company’s last annual report.
Fowler Property’s purchase of Villa Santana follows by a few months its $28 million sale of City Villas, a 148-unit Garden Grove apartment complex near the Christ Cathedral campus.
