A six-building industrial site in Brea totaling close to 230,000 square feet is nearly sold out, after the largest building at the recently renovated campus was sold to one of Orange County’s most popular bakeries.
Irvine-based Perfect 85 Degrees Inc. this month closed on the buy of a 70,492-square-foot distribution property located at 1415 Moonstone, part of the six-building Brea Canyon Commerce Center.
Perfect 85 Degrees paid a little more than $5.6 million, or about $80 per square foot, for the property, which was sold by Cohen Asset Management Inc. of Los Angeles.
The buyer operates the U.S. operations of 85°C Bakery Cafe, a Taiwanese chain of stores that specializes in coffee, cakes and breads. The company has almost 500 stores in Taiwan, China and Australia.
Locations
The company’s first U.S. location is likely the biggest draw at the nearly 4-year-old Diamond Jamboree shopping center in Irvine. The bakery routinely has a line of customers stretching outside the store.
A second U.S. location for 85°C Bakery opened last year in Los Angeles County’s Hacienda Heights and also has developed a cult-like following. The bakery is said to be looking at other locations in the region for expansion, according to brokers.
The Brea building will be used as a central bakery to support 85°C Bakery’s expanding retail operation in the area, said Ian Britton, senior vice president for the Irvine office of Colliers International.
The Moonstone property includes 2,700 square feet of office space, seven dock positions and a fenced yard.
Britton represented Cohen in the sale, along with colleague John Long and Tom Dorman, first vice president at the Orange office of CBRE Group Inc.
Perfect 85 Degrees was represented by Fred Chen, a broker with Commerce-based Focus Group.
Quick Sales
The sale of the building to Perfect 85 Degrees nearly wraps up sales at the Brea Canyon Commerce Center, located in Brea’s industrial corridor between Lambert Road and Imperial Highway.
Cohen paid a reported $14.7 million for the Brea buildings nearly two years ago in one of the larger industrial transactions in North Orange County in 2010. The acquisition was the first local buy in a few years for privately held Cohen, whose backers include individual and institutional investors.
The buildings—at North Palm Avenue and Moonstone Street near the Orange (57) Freeway—previously served as the local operation of building-products maker Simpson Manufacturing Co., which had owned the properties.
Pleasanton-based Simpson Manufacturing, which makes connectors, anchors and other products used in construction, relocated its local operations to San Bernardino. The company, which also operates under the Simpson Strong-Tie Co. name, had been in Brea since the 1970s.
Simpson started with one Brea building and expanded to five others nearby as its operations grew.
After the 2010 sale, which included a short-term leaseback deal to Simpson, Cohen refurbished the properties, added new landscaping and resurfaced the parking lot, with an eye on reselling the six manufacturing and warehouse buildings to individual owners.
Priciest Building
Five buildings at the project have now sold, for close to $20 million, according to CoStar Group Inc. data. This month’s sale to Perfect 85 Degrees was the most expensive of those sales.
Sales—on a per-square-foot basis—have ranged from about $80 for the largest building to more than $120 for smaller properties at Brea Canyon Commerce Center.
Cohen paid about $65 per square foot to buy the buildings from Simpson Manufacturing, according to brokerage data.
Buyers at the campus have come from OC as well as Los Angeles, and include a variety of owner-users, according to Britton.
The majority of the buyers took advantage of record-low interest rates on SBA financing, requiring a modest 10% down payment, Britton said.
Two buildings have been sold to Hand and Nail Harmony, a Brea-based maker of nail polish and other salon products.
The last remaining building at the campus, running about 20,000 square feet, is in escrow and should close escrow by the end of June, according to CBRE’s Dorman.
