McGowan Comfortable at Lend Lease;
K & B; Buys San Clemente Lots
COMMERCIAL
Sycamore Commons in San Juan Capistrano, an under-construction three-building office complex totaling more than 142,000 square feet, has landed its first tenant.
PRG Commercial, a part of Profit Recovery Group of Atlanta, has signed a five-year deal valued at more than $3.3 million to lease 24,282 square feet at Sycamore Commons.
PRG will take the entire second floor of one of the first buildings, which will total about 49,000 square feet. The initial two buildings of Sycamore Commons are set to be completed in April.
Construction of a third building is scheduled to begin in mid-summer, according to Michael Hall, president of Newport Beach-based Colony Pacific Development.
His company will own part of the project along with TMC America of Newport Beach.
Dave Travis of Voit Commercial Brokerage in Irvine, who represented PRG in the deal, said the new lease will average around $2.30 a square feet on a full-service basis.
Gregg Haly and Bob Davis of CB Richard Ellis in Newport Beach are the exclusive listing agents for Sycamore Commons.
The deal comes after PRG’s purchase of Loder, Drew & Associates. Both are involved in auditing services and accounts payable consolidation for corporate clients. LDA expects to move its staff from another San Juan Capistrano building, where it is leasing about 10,000 square feet, by May 1.
“We’ll jump in as soon as it is ready,” said Troy Tate, general counsel of PRG Commercial.
The new offices will serve both LDA and another new purchase of PRG’s,PRS International of Houston. The parent company also is shifting a healthcare division from Atlanta to San Juan Capistrano. All will operate under the newly formed PRG Commercial banner.
The offices at Sycamore Commons will house about 70 employees now working at LDA, as well as 25 others operating in different parts of the county. Tate says he also expects PRG Commercial to hire around 15 more people by April.
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Barry McGowan has had a hectic start in his new job as head of strategic development for Sydney, Australia-based Lend Lease Real Estate Investments.
Since joining the company late last year, the former Orange County commercial properties executive has played a key role in Lend Lease’s acquisitions of Bovis Construction and the largest private investor in apartment properties in the United States, Boston Financial. He has also been involved in Lend Lease’s purchase of Amresco, a global real estate investment firm and mortgage banker.
On the surface, such deal making would appear to be pretty heady stuff for the former corporate investment pro for Newport Beach-based Koll Bren Schreiber Realty Advisors.
“Not really,” he said with a laugh last week from his New York office. “It’s the same sort of things I did at KBS, just on a larger scale.”
The 40-year-old McGowan started his career with KBS after graduating from Harvard Business School in 1991. The Santa Monica native worked for KBS through 1997. But then he was recruited by Cornerstone Properties to become chief investment officer of the third-largest office REIT in the country.
At Lend Lease, McGowan is helping to oversee a $30 billion real estate investment portfolio.
He said contacts he made in California with Koll are a great asset in his new job.
“Koll had a big influence on my development,” said McGowan. “Lend Lease operates pretty similarly. The fundamentals I learned at Koll have been instrumental to my career.”
He regularly talks to KBS principal Chuck Schreiber and will soon be working for a boss from his native California, Cheryl Pressler. She is leaving her job as chief investment officer of the California Public Employees Retirement System to assume the CEO role at Lend Lease’s operations in the U.S. and Europe starting in March.
“I look forward to working with someone of her level,” said McGowan. “At CalPERS, she was working with the largest pension fund in the world.”
RESIDENTIAL
Kaufman & Broad has purchased 62 lots in San Clemente for a new project in the Plaza Pacifica development.
The lots, at La Pata and Avenida Pico, were purchased from Rancho San Clemente Partners for nearly $5 million.
Craig Atkins of Costa Mesa-based O’Donnell/Atkins Co. represented both parties in the deal.
The developer still must receive final approval from the city. Rick Schroeder, director of land acquisitions for Kaufman & Broad in Irvine, said San Clemente only allows up to 500 permits to be issued a year. He added that about 900 have already been requested in the city.
If plans for the Plaza Pacifica project go through, Kaufman & Broad would like to start building models in late July. The development would include homes priced at $300,000 and up, according to Schroeder.
