The second-largest law firm in Orange is moving its headquarters to Costa Mesa.
Woodruff, Spradlin & Smart, which does work for a number of Orange County agencies and city governments, last month signed a 23,000-square-foot lease for the top floor at 555 Anton Blvd.
The building is one of three 12-story towers at Costa Mesa’s MetroCenter at South Coast, owned by San Francisco-based RREEF Funds LLC.
The law firm is moving in September, according to Bradley Hogin, a shareholder and director at the firm.
Woodruff Spradlin has about 30 attorneys, placing it at No. 25 on the Business Journal’s latest list of the county’s largest firms. In Orange, it’s second in size to Walsworth, Franklin, Bevins & McCall LLP, which ranks No. 12 overall on our list.
“The airport area is where we belong” in terms of prestige and being closer to clients, Hogin said.
The lease allows Woodruff Spradlin some room to grow, another reason for the move, Hogin said. Its previous lease at Arden Realty Inc.’s Orange Financial Center, signed in 2000, was for about 18,000 square feet.
The firm’s headquarters had been in Orange for the past 22 years.
A lack of available top-flight space in Central County,which has pushed up rents in the area to rates comparable to those around John Wayne Airport,also played a role in the firm’s move, according to Randall Parker, managing director of Newport Beach’s Travers Realty Corp.
Arden’s Web site lists monthly rents at Orange Financial Center at $2.75 per square foot. Available space at MetroCenter is listed at $2.95 per square foot.
Parker and Steven Card of Travers Realty represented Woodruff Spradlin in the lease. Greg May and Oliver Fleener of Grubb & Ellis Co.’s Newport Beach office represented RREEF.
Valley Center Sells
Two local players were behind the sale of a San Fernando Valley shopping center.
Newport Beach-based Core Realty Holdings LLC paid $22 million, or about $243 per square foot, for Northridge Promenade, a five-acre, 90,344-square-foot shopping center next to a mall.
The seller was a venture of investment firm CIP Real Estate of Irvine and an investment fund of Alex. Brown Realty Inc.
CIP Real Estate bought the four-building center in 2002 when it was 70% empty. After a multimillion-dollar renovation it now is 95% full.
Tenants include Guitar Center, which, at about 15,000 square feet, has its largest store in California at the shopping center, along with a Beverages & More. Both are one year into 10-year leases.
Core Realty said it plans no development at the site. The company owns and operates about 6 million square feet of commercial real estate, primarily in Southern California.
Buchanan Street Move
Newport Beach-based real estate investment bank Buchanan Street Partners cofounder and executive vice president Chris MacDonald has been tapped to head up the company’s San Francisco office.
The San Francisco office opened in 1999. It counts about 11 employees with another three expected to be added by year’s end. Buchanan Street’s hotel investment sales group, which provides investment and finance services to the hotel industry, is based in the office.
MacDonald previously worked in the Bay area, along with Buchanan Street’s other founders, at Pacific Union Realty Finance. That firm was on San Francisco’s Buchanan Street.
An offshoot of homebuilder William Lyon Homes Inc. has snapped up an apartment complex north of San Francisco.
Lyon Capital Ventures of Newport Beach paid roughly $32 million for the Bella Oaks Apartments, a 138-apartment complex in Santa Rosa.
The sales price was about $228,000 per apartment, according to San Francisco-based Arroyo & Coates Commercial Real Estate Services, which listed the property.
The 9.3-acre complex charges rents running from about $1,250 to $1,800 a month. Lyon Capital bested eight other bidders for the complex, previously owned by privately held Oak Creek Condominiums LP, according to local reports. The site could be converted into condominiums.
Lyon Capital Ventures was formed in 1998. It oversees buying and selling of apartments, which are run by another Lyon operation, Lyon Apartment Cos.
Atherton Sale
Irvine-based Atherton-Newport Investments LLC, which also owns apartments, just sold off a big Las Vegas complex.
Bean Investment Real Estate of Portland, Ore., bought the 516-unit Lantana apartments from Atherton-Newport, which counts about 2,000 apartments in the Las Vegas region.
The complex sold for $48.1 million, or about $93,200 per unit.
