The office building boom has made its way to Anaheim Hills.
Silver Oak Development LLC, an Anaheim Hills-based developer that has focused on the Inland Empire, plans to build a three-story, 62,500-square-foot office building in its hometown.
The building isn’t huge compared to towers being built near John Wayne Airport in Irvine. But it stands to be the largest office building to go up in Anaheim in more than three years, said Sheri Vander Dussen, Anaheim’s planning director.
The last one was Trammell Crow Co.’s 383,250-square-foot Arena Corporate Center next to the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, which went up in early 2003.
Silver Oak hopes to start construction by January and finish by June, principal Warren Williams Jr. said.
The building is set for a 4.4-acre site in the East Hills Office Park along the Riverside (91) Freeway at Weir Canyon Road. The park is home to offices of General Dynamics Corp., Stewart Title Co. and the Orange County Transportation Authority.
Irvine’s LBA Realty sold the land for the building. Silver Oak paid $7.8 million, or about $1.8 million per acre.
The project could be the last for the area, said Louis Tomaselli, a senior vice president at the Orange office of Voit Commercial Brokerage LP.
Finding developable land in Anaheim Hills and neighboring Yorba Linda is a challenge, he said.
“This is just about the last piece of land out there,” said Tomaselli, who along with Voit’s Mitch Zehner represented Silver Oak in the land buy.
Bob Griffith and Jon Nesbitt of Grubb & Ellis Co.’s Newport Beach office represented LBA Realty.
The only other real development prospect nearby is at Boeing Co.’s sprawling campus a few miles to the west along La Palma Avenue.
Boeing is in early talks with Anaheim officials about plans of leaving and redeveloping 1.7 million square feet of industrial and office space it owns in the city’s Canyon business park.
Office and industrial redevelopment for the space is likely.
Silver Oak has a tenant for about a third of the proposed building,engineering consultant Development Resource Consultants Inc., an Anaheim Hills company where Williams is a cofounder and part owner.
The developer is considering selling the top two floors of the building, Williams said, with Development Resource taking up most of the bottom.
LBA Realty recently sold the similarly sized 57,245-square-foot building that’s home to General Dynamics for $16.5 million, or $288 per square foot.
A Placentia-based private family trust, K-II Fullerton LLC, bought the three-story building. Grubb & Ellis’ Griffith and Nesbitt represented LBA in that sale. Voit’s Mike Hefner represented the buyer.
General Dynamics has about half the building.
Development Resource plans to consolidate operations from three nearby locations at the new building.
The company has done planning and design work on several local developments, including Werdin Corp.’s Redhill Technology Center in Santa Ana and Burke Real Estate Group’s Talega Business Park in San Clemente.
Silver Oak has developed small office buildings for sale in the Inland Empire and the Las Vegas area.
The company’s projects include an 86,000-square-foot development in east Riverside and an 115,000-square-foot development in Murrieta.
“We’re getting offers for these projects, even though they’re still in the planning stage. I’m still very optimistic about the market,” Williams said.
The Anaheim Hills project “was too good a piece of property to pass up,” he said. “We’ve been keeping an eye open on the area for a while.”
Silver Oak, which has a handful of full-time employees, could take some space in the building alongside Development Resource, Williams said.
Development costs for the Anaheim Hills project haven’t been finalized, Williams said. Like other office developers, Silver Oak is set to see prices for steel, other materials and labor that have risen considerably in the past few years.
