Santa Ana-based shopping center owner Red Mountain Retail Group Inc. has refinanced a large portion of its portfolio.
The company said one of its affiliates, Red Mountain Asset Fund I LLC, closed a $108.6 million loan secured by a 34-property retail shopping center portfolio that totals about 1 million square feet.
The 15-year non-recourse loan was funded by John Hancock Life Insurance Co.
Most of the properties getting refinanced are in Arizona and California. They all were acquired by Red Mountain between 2004 and 2010, and most are more than 92% leased, according to the company.
Red Mountain’s total portfolio runs about 3.5 million square feet, and has a market value of about $700 million, according to the company.
It owns about 10 properties in Orange County. The largest here is a 115,000-square-foot center in Fountain Valley, near Harbor Boulevard and Edinger Avenue, according to the company’s website.
The company once was part of a partnership that planned an $80 million retail development along Newport Beach’s Mariner’s Mile called Bel Maré. That high-profile, 43,500-square-foot project never got off the ground after it hit the economic downturn and legal hurdles.
During the past 18 months, Red Mountain has been adding to its portfolio by buying distressed retail assets, including shopping centers in Phoenix, Dallas, and Los Angeles, according to the company.
It’s also been eyeing the residential market. In 2009, the company started a new residential division that purchased 275 distressed homes predominately in Arizona and Texas.
The group said it plans to buy more distressed homes in the next 18 to 36 months.
Apartment Sale
Newport Beach apartment owner and developer Lyon Communities has sold Villa Venetia, a complex it owned in Marina del Rey.
Denver-based apartment investor Archstone paid $44.8 million for the 224-unit complex, located along the Marina del Rey harbor. The sale works out to $200,000 per apartment.
Archstone plans to put about $25 million into renovating the complex, which is getting renamed Archstone Breakwater at Marina del Rey. At one point, Lyon Communities had planned to build three residential towers at the complex, including condos and apartments.
Lyon Communities was started in 1988 by homebuilding icon Gen. William Lyon and Frank T. Suryan Jr., the company’s chief executive. The company says it has a market capitalization of $2 billion and counts holdings in California, Colorado, Georgia and Florida.
New Local Buyer
Real estate investment company BlackRidge Real Estate Group LLC is moving its headquarters from Colorado to Newport Beach. The company had been based near Denver. It’s relocating and consolidating from that location, as well as an office in West Los Angeles, to 4590 MacArthur Blvd. The Newport Beach office is near John Wayne Airport and better known as the Wells Fargo Bank building.
The move was described as “an opportunity to strategically locate the office in the heart of Southern California, providing our team with prompt access to the key markets located throughout the Southwestern U.S.,” Blackridge Managing Partner Brett Tremaine said in a statement.
Blackridge owns about 1.1 million square feet of industrial properties in Southern California, according to the company’s website. Along with Florida, it’s the company’s largest market right now. It also owns buildings in Arizona and has a development planned for Virginia.
The company made area headlines of late for selling a 410,000-square-foot distribution center in Fontana that’s leased to Costa Mesa’s Anna’s Linens Inc. for about $25 million, or roughly $61 per square foot.
Among recent purchases, Blackridge paid about $7.7 million for a 125,000-square-foot distribution building in Chino that’s fully leased to three tenants. It also spent $6.6 million for a Phoenix-area distribution complex.
Those two properties are among seven industrial assets BlackRidge has acquired in Southern California and the other southwestern states within the past year.
Santa Ana Purchase
Los Angeles-based investor Rexford Industrial has picked up a fully leased 122,000-square-foot distribution facility in Santa Ana. The company paid $8.5 million, or about $70 per square foot, for the property, located at 3441 W. MacArthur Blvd.
It was an all-cash transaction, and the deal closed in under 30 days, according to Rexford. The building’s occupied by communications company Towne Allpoints Inc.
The building was sold by officials with ties to the company, according to CoStar Group Inc. data. It was listed for sale at about $9.1 million, according to brokerage data.
Wade Tift with Grubb & Ellis Co. represented Rexford Industrial in the sale, while Bucky Gillet and Kirstin Emershaw with Gillett Commercial Real Estate Services represented the seller.
