Walton Street Capital LLC suddenly has found itself as one of the largest industrial landlords in Orange County, following its estimated $2.8 billion buy of a national portfolio of buildings.
The Chicago-based company, which manages a number of private equity real estate investment funds, has agreed to acquire 3.3 million square feet of local warehouse and business park properties previously owned by CalWest Industrial Holdings LLC.
CalWest is a venture of California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest pension fund in the U.S., and Chicago-based RREEF Funds LLC.
The OC properties, valued at about more than $400 million, compromise the biggest region represented in Walton Street’s portfolio buy, which totals about 23 million square feet in total.
The OC portfolio includes 19 properties, totaling about 118 buildings. Those 19 properties were about 97% leased at the end of last year, on par with the rest of the county’s industrial properties.
About 1.7 million square feet of the local buildings is warehouse and distribution space, while business parks comprise an additional 1.5 million square feet.
One Irvine office/flex building totaling about 117,000 square feet also was part of the sale.
Most of the buildings are in Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Anaheim, Irvine and Tustin.
For more on this story, see the April 23 issue of the Business Journal.
