The Triangle, the Costa Mesa entertainment center that’s home to some of the city’s busiest nightspots, restaurants and other venues, has been sold to a Los Angeles-based real estate investor who’s no stranger to the dating scene.
An affiliate of Cannon Commercial Inc., a privately held owner and operator of office, retail, multifamily, and industrial properties, recently closed on the purchase of the 204,523-square-foot lifestyle center at the end of the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway.
It sold for about $55 million, real estate sources tell the Business Journal, or about $269 per square foot. The property was about 95% occupied at the time.
Irvine-based Greenlaw Partners sold the center, which it had owned for five years in a venture with financial partners Westbrook Partners in New York and Walton Street in Chicago. They paid about $15 million for it in 2012 after it was plagued by vacancies for several years under various ownership groups; occupancy rates bottomed out around 25% during the last recession.
Anchor tenants that left the center before its 2012 redevelopment include NikeTown, Whole Foods Market, Barnes & Noble and Virgin Megastore.
The new owners spent nearly $25 million in 2012 and 2013 to renovate the center and refocus it from traditional retailers to more “point of destination” tenants, such as entertainment sports, bars and restaurants.
Large tenants now include Yard House, Saddle Ranch Chop House, Tavern & Bowl, 24 Hour Fitness and Time Nightclub, the successor to the center’s Sutra nightclub.
Some tenants now generate monthly sales in excess of $600 per square foot, according to marketing documents from CBRE Group Inc., which first listed the property for sale last year.
The latest additions are dueling-pianos club Keys on Main and a day spa called Hive, both scheduled to open next year.
Tinder Ties
Expect more right-swiping at Time following the sale to Cannon Commercial, which is headed by Kam Mateen, a longtime L.A.-based real estate investor.
His children’s social media investments get more notice than his real estate deals. His son, Justin, is a co-founder of dating app Tinder, which was valued at nearly $3 billion a few months ago.
The Triangle investment is the first in Orange County for Cannon Commercial and its Unimat Commercial Inc. affiliate, according to the companies’ websites.
Holdings in its hometown include Avco Center, a 12-story office on Wilshire Boulevard that holds the Ipic Theater and Tanzi restaurant, according to Cannon’s website.
Cannon also has numerous holdings outside the region, including in the Chicago area. Company officials said this year that they planned to sell more out-of-town properties to focus on deals closer to home.
$150M in Sales
Greenlaw first got involved in the Costa Mesa center, previously called Triangle Square, in 2006 as property manager when it was owned by Wilton, Conn.-based Commonfund Realty Inc.
The sale to Cannon presents a modest profit for the privately held firm, which in recent weeks sold a few other properties for nearly $150 million combined. Two of the sales brought in much higher rates of return for Greenlaw than the Costa Mesa deal.
In the San Diego submarket of Rancho Bernardo, it sold a 181,000-square-foot warehouse for $60.5 million to Annapolis, Md.-based investor Realterm Logistics. Greenlaw bought the property two years ago for about $30 million when it was vacant. It leased it to Amazon, which began using it this past summer as one of four warehouse and fulfillment centers it has in San Diego County.
Greenlaw also just sold 17822 Gillette Ave., a longtime industrial site on MacArthur Boulevard about a mile from John Wayne Airport. It paid about $18 million for the Irvine site in 2014 and got entitlements to build a 137-unit townhouse project. Late last month it sold the property to Intracorp Cos. in Newport Beach for about $28.5 million.
It’s one of several housing projects that Intracorp plans in the airport area.
