Orange-based ACC Capital Holdings Corp., parent of Ameriquest Mortgage Co., is putting as much as 600,000 square feet of office space on the market.
The move comes amid a restructuring that includes cost-cutting and layoffs at the company’s subsidiaries, including Ameriquest, the country’s largest maker of home loans to borrowers with imperfect credit.
ACC Capital is one of the largest tenants in Orange County, having leased close to 1.5 million square feet of space at its peak.
In November, ACC Capital said it was cutting 1,500 workers as rising interest rates cut into loan volume. Then in May, Ameriquest said it was shuttering about 230 retail branches and laying off 3,800 more workers.
ACC Capital has told local real estate brokers that it wants to sublease the office space. The company’s leases at these offices run through 2009 and 2011.
The space is spread across eight buildings in Irvine, Anaheim and Orange.
The buildings include a number of high-profile towers in the John Wayne Airport area: two buildings at The Irvine Company’s Jamboree Center, two buildings at Olen Properties Corp.’s Century Centre towers and at Equity Office Properties Trust’s 2600 Michelson tower.
There’s about 400,000 square feet up for sublease at those five buildings.
ACC Capital unit Argent Mortgage, which funds loans generated by brokers, has its name atop two of these buildings, at Jamboree Center and Century Centre.
If Argent leaves these buildings, the prospect of snagging the rights to prominent signs, which face the San Diego (I-405) Freeway, could lure tenants.
Also being shopped: buildings in Anaheim and Orange, including 127,750 square feet at Trammell Crow Co.’s Arena Corporate Center, next to the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim.
For more on this story, see the June 5 issue of the Business Journal.
