In a sign of Orange County’s improving office market, Laguna Niguel-based Birtcher Anderson Realty LLC said it recently sold a pair of office buildings for $74.4 million,43% more than it paid to buy them in the past year and a half.
Birtcher said it sold a 12-story, 234,611-square-foot office tower at 555 Anton Blvd. in Costa Mesa to a venture of McCarthy Cook & Co. and Stockbridge Capital for $57 million, or $243 per square foot.
The development and investment company said it bought the building for $41.3 million last spring. It didn’t say how much it spent to renovate or spruce up the building.
Rick Putnam and Jeffrey Cole, senior vice presidents and principals of Trammell Crow Co., represented the buyers and Birtcher in the deal.
Birtcher also said it sold Canyon Corporate Center in Anaheim to Wescom Credit Union, which plans to occupy the building for its regional processing operations.
Wescom paid $17.4 million for the four-story, 117,523-square-foot office building at 5601 E. La Palma. Birtcher said it paid $10.6 million for the office building a year and a half ago. Birtcher’s sale works out to about $148 per square foot.
Santa Ana-based First American Corp. plans to leave the Anaheim building in November. The title insurer will move the operation to new office buildings at its Santa Ana campus that are set to finish construction in the fall.
Rick Warner, Mark Friend and Steve Batcheller of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. represented Birtcher in the deal.
Recent office sales in the county show that prices are on the rise amid falling vacancy and rising lease rates in the sector.
OC’s vacancy rate has fallen below 10% according to a handful of market trackers. AEW Capital Management LP recently said it plans to buy 100 Bayview, a 317,000-square-foot office building in Newport Beach, for $120 million, or $375 per square foot,believed to be a record for an office sale near John Wayne Airport.
Birtcher plans to use some of the funds raised in its sales to pay for acquisitions in Southern California, Phoenix and Las Vegas in the next year, said Bob Anderson, chief executive of Birtcher Anderson Realty.
The company said it planned to spend $100 million or more on future buys.
