Irvine’s Bascom Group owns apartments across the county, buying more than 43,000 of them since it was formed in 1996. Now the company is looking to the local and regional office market.
It just entered a partnership with newly formed Realm Real Estate of Newport Beach to put up office buildings and buy existing ones that aren’t doing as well as they could.
The venture’s name is Realm Group LLC. It could make buys as large as $100 million, though deals in the $15 million to $20 million range are more likely, according to J.R. Pearce, Realm Real Estate principal.
The plan for Realm Group is to make two or three deals this year, with as many as five buys or projects per year after that. It will be focusing on projects in Southern California. Orange County will be a priority, according to Pearce.
“Bascom has been moving further and further east” to find more affordable apartment buys, Pearce said. The office partnership will allow the company the chance to stay local.
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Mission Viejo Garden Plaza: sold for about $259 per square foot |
Its first project: a 230,000-square-foot office project in Palmdale. Construction is slated to start next month. The project should be completed in about a year.
Pearce and fellow principals Darrin Olson and Scott Grady just started their firm a month ago. Pearce most recently was with Newport Beach’s Greenlaw Partners. His two partners came from Ontario-based Empire Commercial Real Estate.
Olson previously worked for Bascom,his contacts there resulted in the latest venture.
Separate from the deal with Bascom, Olson is leading up a few housing projects in Pomona for Realm Real Estate, the company said.
The Realm deal isn’t Bascom’s first push into offices. A subsidiary, called Premier Office Centers LLC, runs executive suites, providing small businesses with staffed office space. It leases space in 17 offices across OC.
Mission Viejo Sale
A two-story office, medical and retail center in Mission Viejo traded hands this month for $17.3 million.
Mission Viejo Garden Plaza, a 67,031-square-foot property at 27001 La Paz Road, sold for about $259 per square foot.
Garden Plaza Partners LLC of Newport Beach was the buyer. The seller was Mission Viejo Garden Plaza LLC. Brian Garbutt of Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services Inc.’s Newport Beach office represented the buyer. The seller represented itself.
The buyer intends to do a complete upgrade of the property including a new facade for the retail portion, according to Lee & Associates.
Mission Viejo Garden Plaza has seen its value more than double since 2000, when it sold for a reported $8.2 million.
Newport Beach’s John Laing Homes is moving into the Texas housing market, following its buy of a small builder, Houston-based Lindenwood Homes.
Lindenwood closed 76 homes in 2006 and counts eight employees. It will operate as John Laing’s Houston division. Founder and owner Jim Lemming is remaining following the sale and will serve as president of the Texas region.
John Laing wants to build the division’s sales up to 750 homes per year within five years.
Houston is John Laing’s second new market in recent months. In April, it said it was starting up operations in Phoenix. The remaining 11 divisions are in California and Colorado.
The company’s first project in Houston is in a gated community there. It plans to build 71 homes running up to 2,400 square feet on a 7-acre parcel, according to local reports. Prices will start at $150,000.
More Bascom
Bascom Group isn’t slowing down with its core business of apartment buys and sales, despite its new office deal.
The company this month was in on what is being called the biggest apartment portfolio transaction in Arizona history, a 12-complex, $427.5 million deal.
Bascom Arizona Ventures LLC was the seller. It’s a venture formed in 2004 by Bascom and two managing directors from Scottsdale’s Multifamily Arizona Advisors LLC.
The buyer is another Irvine-based company, Bethany Group LLC. The company owned two other Arizona apartment complexes prior to the buy.
The properties trading hands were older apartments including 5,178 units, according to local reports. They sold for an average price of $82,561 per unit. The average monthly rent for the properties is about $800.
Bethany Group plans to spend about $50 million in the next two years in renovations to the properties.
Also this month, Bascom paid $48 million, or about $90,226 per apartment, for a 532-apartment complex in Sandy Springs, Ga. It also paid $10 million for a 280-apartment complex in Lithonia, Ga.
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