As Western Digital Corp. is settling into its new headquarters at the Park Place office campus in Irvine, the disk drive maker’s former landlord in Lake Forest is making plans for life without the $6.6 billion market cap tenant.
Boston-based TA Associates Realty just began marketing Western Digital’s former three-building campus—Serrano Creek Center in Lake Forest—for sale or lease. The move follows recent upgrades to the property.
Brokers with the Newport Beach office of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. and Irvine-based Orion Property Partners Inc. have the listing for the 184,482-square-foot property, located at 2551 Lake Forest Drive.
The asking sale price for the vacant campus is about $32.3 million, or about $175 per square foot. Monthly asking lease rates are $1.10 per square foot, triple net, according to the brokers marketing the property.
The buildings are now available for occupancy.
The campus includes a trio of two-story buildings. One is a 74,382-square-foot building and the other two have 55,050 square feet.
The 12-acre campus is located less than a mile off Lake Forest Drive and the 241 Transportation Corridor.
CB Richard Ellis’ Jeff Carr and Gregg Haly have the listing for the campus, along with Bob Thagard of Orion Property Partners.
“A potential purchase by a company in growth mode would be an obvious fit,” Carr said. “Acquiring more square footage than they need today would allow for future growth, while at the same time, creating the opportunity to generate revenue by leasing a portion of the campus.”
Western Digital moved employees from Lake Forest and Aliso Viejo to LBA Realty’s Park Place campus beginning last year, in the largest corporate relocation Orange County’s seen in a few years.
The drive maker is now leasing about 365,000 square feet of space in Irvine.
Voit Change
Newport Beach-based Voit Real Estate Services has seen another shake-up in its management.
Bob Osbrink, who was tapped to head up the commercial real estate company’s 10-office brokerage operations earlier this year, abruptly left the company last month.
Osbrink joined the company in April as executive regional director, effectively replacing Kurt Strasmann, who left Voit in March to head up industrial brokerage operations in Southern California for CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.
The departure came a day after Osbrink, formerly an executive at Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co. as well as Sperry Van Ness in Irvine, was a panelist at the RealShare Orange County conference in Newport Beach.
A reason for the departure wasn’t given. Reached by phone, Osbrink told the Business Journal he had a new real estate venture lined up, working with an undisclosed foreign investor.
Voit officials also declined to discuss the reasons for his departure.
“Voit Real Estate Services wishes Bob Osbrink the best in all his future endeavors,” the company said in a statement.
Voit counts about 70 brokers in Orange County, and ranked as the region’s second-largest commercial brokerage last year, based on transaction volume.
Tustin Sale
A recently built apartment complex in Tustin has been put up for sale by its developer.
Arcadia-based Nevis Homes has begun marketing Tustin Cottages, a 93-unit apartment property just off Red Hill Avenue and the Santa Ana (5) Freeway.
Joe Leon, managing director for the Irvine office of Jones Lang LaSalle, and Vice President Javier Rivera have the listing for the property. It’s gone to the market unpriced but is expected to fetch close to $40 million, based on other apartment sales in the region of late.
That would work out to a sale price of about $430,100 per apartment for the complex, which includes 24 three- and four-story buildings.
The residences, located at 1361 El Camino Real, average about 1,647 square feet per unit—larger than the area’s typical apartment units. Each apartment has at least three bedrooms along with direct access to a two-car garage.
A unit of Nevis Homes paid a reported $15 million for the Tustin Cottages property in 2004, which at the time included 65 apartments. The builder initially eyed the site as a condominium redevelopment, but later switched to apartments.
The five-acre project finished up earlier this year and currently is about 85% leased.
It’s the first new apartment complex to open in Tustin in nearly 15 years, according to Leon, who also worked on the 2004 sale of the property to Nevis.
