Anaheim-based Evangelical Christian Credit Union is building a new 120,000-square-foot Brea headquarters with plans for two more buildings.
The credit union, whose customers include members of Christian churches, schools and missionary groups, acquired 17.5 acres at the northeast corner of Puente Street and Imperial Highway last fall for $11.4 million.
In all, the credit union plans three buildings in the next 10 years spawning 289,000 square feet,a campus where the credit union will be owner, tenant and landlord, according to Chief Executive Mark Holbrook.
“We provide commercial banking services for ministries,” Holbrook said. “We’re the only credit union,or for that matter bank,that focuses exclusively on (this). So it’s a natural partnership to provide excess space and at the same time meet their banking needs.”
The credit union could offer space to member organizations or lease to anyone, he said.
“There’s a dearth of quality office space there,” Holbrook said, referring to the area in Brea.
The credit union plans to grow to 250 employees in the next 12 to 18 months, up from 195 today. In Brea, Evangelical Christian plans to take all but 20,000 square feet of the new building and has a tentative commitment for three-fourths of the remaining space of the first building.
“We expect the first building to be fully committed,” he said. “We could start the second building as early as a year from now if there’s enough interest.”
“ECCU bought more than they really needed so they could expand,” said Ben Seybold, a broker with CB Richard Ellis.
The credit union’s new neighbor will be Sekisui TA Industries Inc., a packing tape maker coming to Brea from Garden Grove. Five acres in the area remain available.
The location worked because Brea is not far from the current location in Anaheim, meaning employee commutes would not vary much, said Michael Guess, the credit union’s vice president of marketing.
“This is more than we needed but the price worked out well for us,” Guess said.
The credit union also looked at property in Fullerton, he said.
The move to Brea comes as a result of the credit union’s growth of the past decade, Holbrook said.
“We’ve been growing assets by 20 % a year for 10 years,assets and people both, though it slowed down a bit last year,” he said.
For the third quarter, the credit union had assets of $273 million, up from $238 million in the year-ago period. Deposits totaled $225 million, up 3%, while revenue was $21.7 million, up 20%.
Started in 1964 as the Conservative Baptist Credit Union, the credit union later merged with the Association of Christian Schools International Credit Union to become Evangelical Christian. Members are in all 50 states and 100 countries.
The credit union has steadily added to,and now strains,the bounds of its current 59,000-square-foot Anaheim site, which is half the size of the first new Brea building and one-fifth of the total planned campus. In Anaheim, the credit union’s operations are spread among nine industrial park buildings.
The credit union owns those buildings, too, and will look to sell them in a year as its new site takes shape. Bob Sattler of Lee & Associates, Evangelical Christian’s buying broker on the Brea deal, will have the listing, Holbrook said.
“Most of the buildings are connected by data links,” he said. And, in a nod to the current energy woes in California, Holbrook notes that the main building, at 22,000 square feet, has its own diesel generator.
Holbrook said the second and third Brea buildings are planned at 80,000 and 89,000 square feet. Either could be built next, he said. The Newport Beach office of DPR Construction Inc. is the builder. The credit union plans a “unified architectural theme” designed by Ware & Malcomb Architects Inc. in Irvine.
The site plans also call for shared facilities for meetings and possibly food service. The credit union has talked about having some kind of food court, or at least small lunch-oriented operators, though zoning precludes a full restaurant, Holbrook said.
Development of the first building stands to come in at $15.3 million with a comparable expectation for smaller ones over the next several years. Throughout the campus, the credit union plans to put some $500,000 into artwork to meet the 1% of construction costs art fee that the city of Brea exacts.
“I told them not to spend more than $100,000 on my statue,” joked Holbrook.
The artwork is set to reflect the credit union’s “purpose for existence, representing some sort of service or servant element,” he said. n
