Essex Realty Lands Contracts; Central Park Living in Irvine?
Newport Beach-based Koll Development Co. has landed a big tenant at Koll Dublin Corporate Center, a 620,000-square-foot, 700-acre masterplanned business park in the Bay area city of Dublin.
Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Avaya Inc., a spinoff of Lucent Technologies Inc., signed a 67,000-square-foot lease at the Koll center. A dollar figure wasn’t disclosed.
Avaya, a communications systems and software provider, counts 1,100 employees in the Bay area. The company’s CRM Solutions Group plans to take up the space in Dublin.
The deal with Avaya brings the Koll Corporate Center to 83% leased within the project’s first two phases, totaling 416,000 square feet. Other tenants include energy producer Calpine Corp., software developer Macromedia Inc., time-clock company Kronos Inc. and drug maker SuperGen Inc.
In September, Koll broke ground on the project’s second phase, a four-story, 138,000-square-foot office building.
Phases I and II of the business park are joint ventures of Koll Development and the National Electrical Benefit Fund, a pension fund for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
When completed, the three-phase project stands to combine 620,000 square feet of Class A office space and an additional 55,000 square feet of “office serving” commercial space.
Koll Development plans to complete the project by the end of 2002.
Architect Hoover and Associates in Palo Alto designed the park. Pleasanton-based The Wentz Group is the general contractor. Kirk Beebe and Chris Adams of the CB Richard Ellis Services Inc.’s Pleasanton office are handling the marketing.
COMMERCIAL
Equity Office Properties Trust’s completed acquisition of Spieker Properties grabbed headlines for its creation of a new big player in Orange County office ownership and management. But others are quietly landing major contracts.
Costa Mesa-based Essex Realty Management recently grabbed management deals throughout California on nine commercial properties totaling 780,000 square feet. Seven of the properties are office buildings, one is a flex-tech facility and one is a 142,000-square-foot distribution center.
Among the tenants are CT Realty of Newport Beach, EPI, a limited partnership in Orange, Milco Development of Sacramento, KF Partners of Los Angeles, T-PAC Investments Inc. of Palo Alto and Reclaimed Island Land Co. of Menlo Park, according to Bill McCarthy, director of marketing for Essex.
Three of the properties are in Orange County. They include a 38,000-square-foot building in the Hillcrest Office Park at 1370 N. Brea Blvd., Fullerton; Orangethorpe Plaza, which encompasses two office buildings totaling 90,000 square feet at 1661 N. Raymond Ave. and 1100 E. Orangethorpe Ave. in Anaheim; and Essex Corporate Center, a 94,000-square-foot flex-tech building at 1900 E. Carnegie Ave., Santa Ana.
The remaining properties include three in the Sacramento area, two in Los Angeles County and a 53,000-square-foot office building in Carlsbad.
RESIDENTIAL
Executives of Irvine-based developer Sares-Regis Group received the go-ahead to develop an “ultra-luxury” apartment complex in Irvine.
Irvine officials approved plans for the much-talked-about, $134 million, 535-unit luxury complex at Campus Drive and Carlson Avenue. The project is being called the Watermarke Apartments and Townhomes de Luxe.
“More than 75% of the units will have dramatic, sweeping views of the adjacent, preserved habitat in the protected San Joaquin Freshwater Marsh and adjacent UCI Arboretum,” said Barry Kamel, president of Sares-Regis Group’s Multifamily Development Division.
The company is sparing no analogy in pitching the project: “It will be like living overlooking Central Park in New York City,” Kamel said.
The developer plans to break ground on the project this fall. The apartment complex is set to feature one- to three-bedroom floor plans and “an ultra-luxury amenity package,” according to Kamel.
Newport Beach-based architectural firm Kaufman Meeks + Partners is designing the apartments. Regis Contractors, an affiliate of Sares-Regis Group, is the general contractor for the multifamily development.
