Santa Monica-based Watt Commercial Properties has kicked off the $20 million overhaul of a shopping center it owns in Huntington Beach.
The retail owner and developer, a unit of Watt Cos., recently began redevelopment work at Edinger Plaza, a 145,000-square-foot property at 7490-7664 Edinger Ave., located a few blocks from Beach Boulevard and the San Diego (I-405) Freeway.
The site is largely leased, according to CoStar Group Inc. records. Existing tenants at the center, owned by Watt since 1976, include PetSmart and Michaels Arts & Crafts stores.
The redevelopment at the 15-acre property should take about a year and will expand the shopping center size to about 155,000 square feet, according to marketing materials.
As part of the redevelopment, Watt will turn an existing building being vacated by CVS Pharmacy into a larger, nearly 48,000-square-foot building that will hold Dick’s Sporting Goods, a new anchor tenant for the center.
Other buildings being upgraded include the existing Michaels store, which is getting storefront improvements along with an expansion to 25,000 square feet.
A space vacated by Howard’s Appliance & Flat Screen Superstores also is being expanded to 34,000 square feet to hold a new, as-yet-undisclosed tenant, according to the developer.
The center, which last got a makeover in 1989, also is getting upgrades to its façades and storefronts. Landscaping work is under way as well.
The renovation of Edinger Plaza, which is across the street from the 780,000-square-foot Shops at Bella Terra mall, is the latest change for that corridor of Huntington Beach.
At a nearby site called Village at Bella Terra, a 154,113-square-foot Costco and more than 400 apartments are being developed.
And last month the area’s largest office complex, Bella Terra Towers, traded hands for about $76 million.
Watt Commercial owns 39 shopping centers, which in general are anchored by grocery and drug stores.
The holdings total about 2 million square feet and are mostly in Southern California.
Watt recently completed a $6 million upgrade to the 150,000-square-foot Alicia Town Plaza in Mission Viejo.
That redevelopment included the conversion of a Mervyns building into a smaller retail space for LA Fitness.
MBK Moves
Irvine-based MBK Homes LLC is moving its headquarters from the Spectrum closer to John Wayne Airport, according to area brokers.
The builder, a subsidiary of Japanese industrial conglomerate Mitsui & Co., recently inked a lease for about 27,000 square feet at Newport Beach-based developer Irvine Company’s Jamboree Center office complex.
MBK will be occupying space on parts of three floors at Jamboree Center’s 4 Park Plaza office tower, according to Randall Parker, president of Travers Realty Corp. in Newport Beach. Travers represented MBK in the lease.
MBK had been operating out of about 19,000 square feet at the Corporate Business Center, a Spectrum-area office park also owned by Irvine Co.
MBK ranked as Orange County’s 19th-largest builder last year with 28 new homes sold here, according to Business Journal data.
The company builds both attached and detached homes, and caters to first-time and move-up homebuyers.
MBK is currently selling in four developments, including Greenbrier in Yorba Linda, which has homes in the 3,000-square-foot range. Others are in Gardena in Los Angeles County, Eastvale in Riverside County, and Citrus Heights in Sacramento County.
KBS Plans Postponed
With sluggish conditions in the commercial real estate market, Newport Beach’s KBS Realty Advisors is re-evaluating its disposition plans for a big, non-traded real estate investment trust it runs.
KBS, one of the country’s most active buyers of offices and industrial properties the past few years, raised close to $1.7 billion from nearly 42,000 investors for its KBS REIT I, an investment trust that started operations in 2006.
That money has been used to buy more than 18 million square feet of office and industrial buildings across the country, as well as debt tied to other properties.
KBS originally intended to hold its core properties in the REIT four to seven years. It’s now “increasingly likely” that the company will push back the timing for any liquidation plans until market conditions improve, according to a recent regulatory filing from the company’s KBS Legacy Partners REIT Inc., another offering run by the company.
Postponing any large-scale sales will “improve the prospects for investors to have their capital returned and to realize a profit on their investment,” the company said in the filing.
The REIT’s charter calls for KBS to determine by November 2012 whether it wants to list the non-traded REIT’s shares on a national exchange, move to liquidate its holdings or postpone a decision until a later time.
