LBA Realty has added another big office property in the Irvine Spectrum to its portfolio, snapping up a two-building property that includes the headquarters of Taco Bell Corp.
The Irvine-based real estate investor recently acquired 1 and 3 Glen Bell Way, interconnected offices next to the Santa Ana (5) Freeway near Alton Parkway and the recently built Marriott Irvine Spectrum hotel.
The offices total about 270,000 square feet. They were bought a few weeks ago by an affiliate of privately held LBA for $104 million, or nearly $385 per square foot, according to property records.
It’s the largest Spectrum-area office sale this year and one of just three office deals in Orange County to top $100 million, according to records of real estate market tracker CoStar Group Inc.
The seller was Torrance-based Transpacific Development Co., which paid a reported $73 million for the buildings in 2009.
Tacos, Cars
Taco Bell takes up the largest of the two fully-leased buildings, the 181,482-square-foot, five-story office at 1 Glen Bell Way.
It’s been in the space, which can hold about 600 employees, since early 2010.
Since its move there, the street was renamed in honor of Glen Bell Jr., who founded the company in 1962.
The original Taco Bell restaurant in Downey was moved to the Irvine property a couple of years ago.
Taco Bell, a unit of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., is the largest restaurant chain operator based in OC, generating about $9.8 billion in systemwide sales.
It initially signed a 10-year lease for the space. There have been no reports that it extended the lease, which expires in February 2020, according to CoStar records.
Before moving to the Spectrum, Taco Bell was based near John Wayne Airport at 17901 Von Karman Ave., now known as the Oracle Tower and owned by LBA.
The two-story 3 Glen Bell Way building is about 90,000 square feet and leased to Ford Motor Co., which uses it as a design center and an office for local operations.
The two buildings were previously known as One and Three Premier Place after Ford’s former Premier Automotive Group of European brands.
Nearby Site
LBA’s last big reported Spectrum-area acquisition took place in December 2016, when it bought a 26-acre campus at 9740 Irvine Blvd. for $65 million.
The property previously held the domestic headquarters of Japan-based Toshiba Corp., which has relocated area operations to a few other buildings since selling to LBA.
The 9740 Irvine building, with about 450,000 square feet of office, industrial, and flex space, is being marketed for lease. It’s near the intersection of Irvine Boulevard and Alton on the southern edge of the former El Toro Marine base and about a three-mile drive from the recently bought Glen Bell Way properties.
