Bacchus Development Co. has started on the company’s fourth small-buildings-for-sale project in the Irvine Spectrum.
Irvine-based Bacchus plans 40 buildings on 18 acres at Irvine Center and Lake Forest drives. The project, Bacchus Signature Series, is set to open by summer and targets architects, engineering firms and advertising agencies.
Bacchus, owned by Steven Bren, son of The Irvine Company’s Donald Bren, is offering two-story offices for sale, ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. The entire development should run about 265,000 square feet.
Bacchus’ prior developments at the Spectrum have proved to be big sellers.
The company’s last project to break ground, Bacchus Office Park, is nearing completion of its first phase this month. The buildings, totaling 110,000 square feet, are sold.
The remaining 160,000 square feet is set to be completed by March and is about 80% sold out, said Jeffrey John Bitetti, executive vice president for Bacchus.
Interest from small business owners remains brisk, Bitetti said.
“There’s been stabilization in prices, but people are still buying,” he said.
Irvine-based Ware Malcomb Architects is serving as the architect for Bacchus Signature Series project. Brea’s KPRS Construction Services Inc. is handling construction.
Trading Hands
Jeronimo Center, an 82,782-square-foot shopping center in Mission Viejo, traded hands this month for $25 million, or about $302 per square foot.
The shopping center, at 25800 and 24001 Via Fabricante, is on 7.2 acres. It’s 92% full.
Everybody in on the deal was local, including buyer Warmington Capital Partners LP of Costa Mesa and seller Passco Cos. in Irvine.
Richard Walter and Dennis Vaccaro of Irvine-based Faris Lee Investments, which focuses on shopping center sales, represented both parties.
The shopping center generated five offers and sold at a capitalization rate,the expected return from rents and fees,of 6%, according to Vaccaro. Selling points included below-market rents, and the potential to sell off part of the center now used by auto renter Hertz to another owner.
“The Orange County retail market remains very strong,” said Walter, Faris Lee president. “With a limited number of available retail properties on the market, they continue to sell at a premium. The supply versus demand curve is still in the seller’s favor.”
It’s the latest big South County deal for Faris Lee this year.
The company sold the Marbella Plaza shopping center in San Juan Capistrano for about $415 per square foot in September. In March, it sold off a section of the Shops at Aliso Viejo at $830 per square foot, an OC retail record.
Texas Eclipse
Irvine-based developer Eclipse Development Group LLC is entering the Texas market with a $200 million bang.
The company plans stores, homes and a hotel in Friendswood, a town of 34,000 people about 20 miles southeast of Houston.
Plans for The Falls at Friendswood include 400,000 square feet of stores, a boutique hotel, townhomes, condominiums and upscale apartments, according to local reports. The 1.6 million-square-foot project is spread across 130 acres. Construction is set to begin in summer and finish in late 2008.
Irvine’s Bascom Group LLP, best known for buying and upgrading large apartment complexes, now is eyeing troubled apartment loans.
The company has started a venture with New York-based private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC. The plan is to invest up to $200 million in distressed apartment loans.
The companies plan to target loans in the $1 million to $100 million range from banks and other lenders. Bascom officials said that there’s a chance to grab apartments tied to high-interest loans that were made in the 1990s.
Bascom owns more than 21,000 apartments, mostly in the West and in Texas. The venture could look to grab more business in the South, according to Bascom.
Rising Home Sales
Home sellers should be prepared for a lot more competition in 2007, not to mention a continued slowdown in the market, local real estate watchers said.
There are close to 15,000 sellers of existing homes on the market, about 6,500 more than there were a year ago, according to the latest data from the Aliso Viejo-based office of Re-Max Real Estate Services.
About 2,000 homes went into escrow in the past 30 days.
“Most concerning is that, according to our agents, many sellers are pulling their homes off the market in anticipation of the spring market in 2007,” Re-Max President Steven Thomas said in a report. “There are also many homeowners who have bypassed the 2006 market altogether and are waiting on the spring market as well.”
While starting the year with 12,000 homes for sale, the number could grow to more than 20,000 homes on the market in the spring,great news for buyers, but not for sellers.
