Another of Orange County’s condominium tower projects built at the tail end of the last real estate boom is seeing condos converted to apartments.
The developers of Astoria, a two-tower condo project at Irvine’s Central Park West development near John Wayne Airport, are offering some of the unsold homes at the towers as rentals.
The smallest homes in the towers, which run a little more than 1,100 square feet, are being offered at rents starting at $2,800 per month.
Some of the penthouses, which are about 2,800 square feet, are listed at monthly rents of $20,000, according to the developers.
Astoria includes 240 units in all.
The towers opened about two years ago and were put up by Miami-based Lennar Corp., which runs day-to-day operations from Aliso Viejo, and Canada’s Intergulf Development Group.
The buildings sit on the back corner of the 40-acre Central Park West development and overlook the San Diego (I-405) Freeway near Jamboree Road.
The move to rentals comes a little more than a year after Lennar resumed sales of low-rise condos it developed at Central Park West.
The site is a former Parker Hannifin Corp. complex that Lennar bought a majority stake in for a reported $100 million in 2004.
Unlike other Central Park condos, sales of homes at Astoria weren’t mothballed during the down housing market. By most accounts, the towers have seen slow sales.
How many of the Astoria homes are being offered for rent hasn’t been disclosed. There’s no word on what the conversion means to those who’ve already bought condos at the towers.
The move to convert some of Astoria into apartments comes about 15 months after another onetime condo tower—Santa Ana’s Skyline at MacArthur Place development—was turned into an apartment complex by its new owners, a venture headed up by Palo Alto-based Essex Property Trust Inc.
Essex bought the buildings, now known as Essex Skyline, for about $129 million, or about 55% of the initial construction cost for the towers.
The two-tower, 349-unit Skyline project was about two-thirds leased at the end of 2010, according to regulatory filings by Essex.
Faris Does Finance
Irvine-based retail brokerage Faris Lee Investments said it’s starting up a financing arm.
Services being offered by Faris Lee Capital Markets Group include investment sales, debt placement and structured finance, recapitalization and equity for retail real estate owners.
It also will offer financial advisory services, according to Faris Lee.
Richard Berlinghof, a principal with Faris Lee Investments and a 26-year financial industry executive, is managing partner of the new group. He’s been with Faris Lee since 2009. Prior to that he was a director at what’s now Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The company’s now working on recapitalization work totaling more than $400 million, according to Faris Lee President Rich Walter.
Premier in Ohio
Irvine’s Premier Business Centers, one of the largest operators of executive office suites in the country, has added its first suites in Ohio.
Premier, which has more than 1 million square feet of executive suite space across the country, added space in Cincinnati’s Chiquita Center.
The site has 19,775 rentable square feet, including 77 offices, three conference rooms, a kitchen and a reception area.
Premier’s centers offer smaller businesses staffed office space and a variety of shared services, including office administration, furniture, conference rooms and high-speed Internet access.
The Cincinnati location makes 62 for Premier across the country.
Last year, the company added suites in Santa Ana at Griffin Towers’ 6 Hutton Centre Drive building and in Newport Beach at 4000 MacArthur Blvd.
Premier was started by the founders of Irvine apartment investor Bascom Group LLC.
