Torrance-based Transpacific Development Co. said on Monday it bought the Irvine Spectrum office complex that’s served as the West Coast headquarters for Ford Motor Co. and which is about to become the headquarters for Irvine-based Taco Bell Corp.
The deal, valued at $73 million, is the largest office sale in Orange County so far this year.
Transpacific said it is buying One Premier Place and Three Premier Place, a two-building complex that faces the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway near Alton Parkway. The buildings total 270,000 square feet.
Taco Bell Corp., the largest restaurant chain operator based in Orange County, will be leasing 181,000 square feet of the complex once it moves its headquarters there from elsewhere in Irvine next year. It signed a 10-year lease for the space last November.
Ford sold the complex, which it built in 2001 at a cost of about $68 million. The company is consolidating operations into the remainder of the space not being leased to Taco Bell.
The Irvine site had been the U.S. headquarters for Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, which was made up of the automaker’s European brands. Ford has since sold off many of those brands.
The $73 million value for the sales transaction includes the purchase price plus Transpacific’s assumption of financial obligations under the leases, according to the developer.
