COMMERCIAL
The commercial real estate arm of Walnut’s J.F. Shea Co.—developer of the stalled Legacy Park project in Tustin—has made some deals in and outside of Orange County.
Aliso Viejo’s Shea Properties has sold off at least $200 million of its apartment and shopping center holdings in recent months, according to reports.
The most recent deal announced was for a shopping center Shea built in Alameda County, the 125,000-square-foot The Shops at Waterford in Dublin.
A unit of Loja Group LLC, a Walnut Creek-based real estate investor, paid $44 million, or about $352 per square foot, for the center. Shea Properties built The Shops at Waterford, which includes a 55,000-square-foot Safeway, in 2002 for a reported $30 million.
The development also includes a 390-unit apartment complex that Shea recently sold. A unit of Texas-based investor Behringer Harvard Holdings LLC bought the apartments, called Waterford Place, from Shea for about $80 million in September.
Local apartment sales made by Shea include Irvine’s Calypso Apartments and Lofts. Behringer Harvard, a frequent deal-maker with Shea and other local apartment owners of late, paid about $49 million for the new, 177-apartment development in December.
On the leasing front, Shea said about a month ago that it signed a 106,000-square-foot lease for an office complex it built outside Phoenix, to Humana Pharmacy Solutions, the pharmacy arm of Humana Inc. The 173,000-square-foot office complex, called 91 Glendale, now is full, a little more than two years after it opened.
High-Rise Hopes
The lull in local office construction isn’t stopping construction company Cavico Corp.’s high-rise plans.
Cavico, a Vietnamese construction company whose executive offices are in Huntington Beach, has been moving ahead with a 27-story office tower—in Hanoi.
A subsidiary of the company completed the concrete work for the project, dubbed the Apex Tower, in December. Cavico expects to complete construction of the tower next year.
The building’s expected to be about 400,000 square feet, according to the company’s marketing materials. Cavico plans to occupy seven floors of the tower.
Cavico, which moved from the Bulletin Board stock exchange to Nasdaq late last year, counted a recent market value of about $13 million.
It saw $20.7 million in revenue for the December quarter, according to preliminary results. That was up 33% from a year earlier.
For 2009, Cavico reported a net loss of $3.9 million, compared to a profit of $600,000 a year earlier, according to preliminary results.
The company’s in the process of trying to raise an additional $20 million from investors.
Santa Ana Sales
A Santa Ana shopping center has been acquired by a real estate investment trust.
Purchase, N.Y.-based Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. said last month that it bought the Santa Ana Downtown Plaza on East First Street. The 100,306-square-foot center sold for $17.3 million, or about $172 per square foot.
The shopping center’s about 89% full and is anchored by a Food 4 Less.
The deal was one of three February acquisitions totaling about $32 million announced by Retail Opportunity, a former blank check company that has about $400 million in cash on hand to buy properties. The company, which is targeting shopping centers in densely populated areas, converted into an investment trust in late 2009.
Retail Opportunity’s headed up by Stuart Tanz, former chief executive of San Diego-based Pan Pacific Retail Properties, now part of Kimco Realty Corp.
Tanz was last in the news locally in late 2008, when he was nominated to the board of Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co. in an unsuccessful proxy battle waged by Tony Thompson, a former chairman for the real estate brokerage and investor.
RESIDENTIAL
Fieldstone Group of Cos., an Irvine-based homebuilder, has a new chief executive with plenty of familiarity with the local market.
William McFarland was named chief executive of FNE Holdings LLC, the primary parent company of Fieldstone, which builds in California, Utah and Texas. He had joined the company’s board this past year.
Until stepping back in the late 1990s, McFarland was an Irvine Company company executive vice president and director. He also served as chief executive of Irvine Community Development Co., the housing development arm of the Newport Beach-based master developer.
A longtime member of Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren’s inner circle, McFarland also once was chief executive of Bren’s separately run homebuilder, Bren Co., which later became California Pacific Homes Inc. California Pacific, which most recently was run by Bren’s son Cary Bren, suspended home building operations last year.
During his career, McFarland has overseen the development of more than 40,000 homes and apartments, the majority of that with Irvine Co.
In other moves, Fieldstone also announced the promotion of Chad Ogden, formerly the regional president overseeing Texas and Utah operations, to president of FNE Holdings.
