CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., Orange County’s largest commercial brokerage and property manager, is getting bigger.
The Los Angeles-based company said earlier this month it plans to buy Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. for about $2.2 billion, including assumption of debt. The deal is set to close by early 2007, pending federal and shareholder approval.
The combined company is set to have about 21,000 workers and yearly revenue of nearly $4.4 billion. Locally, CB will have about 120 property management employees and 130 brokers after the buy closes.
The deal adds to CB’s already sizable presence here. The company’s Newport Beach office has held the No. 1 spot among county brokerages in recent years, according to the Business Journal’s annual list. Its Anaheim office usually isn’t far behind.
Together the offices worked on about $3 billion worth of sales and lease transactions last year.
Trammell Crow’s Irvine office was No. 13 in this year’s ranking of local brokerages, doing $673 million of transactions.
On the property management side, CB’s Newport Beach office held the top spot last year. Trammell Crow was No. 3.
Together, they manage about 50 million square feet of space in the county, about 23 million square feet more than the next biggest property manager, The Irvine Company.
“The best part about the deal is that it’s being done for strategic reasons” and not just to add business, said Sherry Bower, senior managing director for CB’s OC operations.
Trammell Crow has “a very high-quality brand,” she said. “People here have received the news well.”
Details about how the local offices will be integrated still are several months away.
One offering that Trammell Crow has that CB doesn’t is a development division. Locally, the company hasn’t built too much as of late. It backed out of a deal to build condos in Irvine earlier this year. Past projects include the Arena Corporate Center in Anaheim and Lake Forest’s Pacific Vista.
The development and investment business of Trammell Crow will be run independently once the acquisition is done, the companies said.
Competitors are waiting to see what the acquisition will mean for them locally.
Over time, “I suspect that Orange County developers, investors, property managers, lenders and appraisers will see fewer opportunities come their way from CBRE, because they will become a predominant participant in each real estate category themselves,” said Bill Lee, founder of brokerage Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services Inc.
Birtcher in Oregon
Irvine-based Birtcher Development & Investments LLC, the company behind some of OC’s more distinctive office buildings, is building another,in Oregon.
The company recently announced plans to build a 98,796-square-foot office project in Tualatin, a suburban town about 10 miles from Portland.
The four-story property is tentatively named the Birtcher Tualatin 99 Building. It’s pegged to cost about $22 million to build. Birtcher closed on the land last month. Construction should begin in March and is expected to be done in early 2008.
CT Realty Corp. of Newport Beach is getting into the condominium business.
The development and investment company, led by Robert Campbell, a veteran of the OC commercial real estate scene, has entered a venture to build a $30 million condo project in Long Beach.
The development is called Pacifica at the Promenade, a 62-home project at 200 E. Broadway Ave. in Long Beach, a few minutes from the ocean. Along with the homes, which start in the low $400,000s, the project includes 5,161 square feet of shops.
It’s the first ground-up condo project that 12-year-old CT Realty has undertaken. The company has emphasized offices, industrial complexes, apartments and self-storage facilities.
CT Realty partnered with Lennar Corp.’s Orange Coast homebuilding division and Argosy Investors LLC, made up of principals of Irvine-based builder Snyder Langston, to develop the project.
The partnership is known as Lennar Long Beach Promenade Partners LLC.
A unit of Snyder Langston is building the condos, which broke ground in May. Homes are projected to open in January, with six floor plans ranging from 708 square feet to 2,276 square feet.
SunCal Nabs Teteak
Randy Teteak, former president of Irvine-based land brokerage O’Donnell/Atkins, has a new gig.
The job shouldn’t be too hard for the retired Marine to pick up. Teteak, who joined O’Donnell/Atkins in 2002, will be working for his old company’s biggest customer.
Teteak is joining the land disposition group of Irvine-based SunCal Cos., a developer of masterplanned communities. A formal title still is in the works, Teteak said. He’ll be working with builders and managing relations with brokerages.
SunCal and O’Donnell/Atkins are frequent partners. They worked together for SunCal’s purchase of San Clemente’s 250-acre Marblehead Coastal property.
