Accounting firm White Nelson & Co. is moving its headquarters from Anaheim to an office development under construction in Irvine.
The firm just signed a seven-year lease for about 23,000 square feet of space at Jamboree Business Center, a three-building, low-rise office complex being developed by The Irvine Company.
White Nelson plans to take up about a floor at one of the three buildings at 2875 Michelle Drive.
The firm’s name is set to be displayed on the top of the building, which sits close to the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway, the Foothill (261) Toll Road and Jamboree Road.
White Nelson ranked No. 12 on the Business Journal’s July list of the largest accounting firms operating in the county. The firm counts 10 partners and 100 local employees and has nearly doubled in size the past six years.
The firm focuses on privately held businesses, particularly manufacturers and distributors.
It represents more than 1,200 businesses and 1,800 individuals, according to the firm.
Like other smaller accounting firms, White Nelson has grown with an overflow of work from the largest national accounting firms, which have had their hands full with Sarbanes-Oxley reporting for public companies, Managing Partner Dave Doran said.
“The past few years, we’ve become seen as the alternative for privately held (businesses),” Doran said.
White Nelson has been looking to acquire other accounting firms in OC and in the Inland Empire, he said.
The firm is set to move to its new headquarters in January, when construction of the building wraps up.
It’s the first lease signed for Jamboree Business Center, an estimated
$22 million development that started construction in late 2006. When the complex is finished, the three 77,000-square-foot buildings will be three stories each.
The lease is one of the bigger office deals that Irvine Co.,the county’s largest landlord,has struck in recent months.
Robert Brunswick, chief executive of Newport Beach-based Buchanan Street Partners, said the OC office market is continuing to soften and tenants can negotiate lower rents as blocks of space stay on the market.
Terms of the White Nelson’s lease weren’t disclosed. Monthly rents at the new buildings run $2.35 per square foot a month, according to Irvine Co.’s Web site.
“The Irvine Co. did an excellent job accommodating White Nelson’s long-term business plan,” said Randall Parker, managing director for the Newport Beach office of tenant broker Travers Realty Corp., who represented the accounting firm in the lease.
White Nelson is moving from Anaheim’s Stadium Towers, owned by Maguire Properties Inc.
It had been a tenant at the East Katella Avenue tower for close to 18 years. High occupancy rates at the building in recent years made expansion difficult.
The move makes sense, Doran said. The Irvine office puts the firm closer to potential clients while keeping it close to its Central County base.
Of the county’s top 40 accounting firms, White Nelson had been the only firm based Anaheim.
“The move gives us a fresh change,” he said.
White Nelson is the second big Central County accounting tenant signed on for a new office space in Irvine.
In May, Singer Lewak Greenbaum & Goldstein LLP, an accounting and management consulting firm, signed on for about 25,000 square feet of space at the third and final building being built at the Opus Center Irvine campus.
Los Angeles-based Singer Lewak is moving its local offices from Santa Ana, where it took up about 16,000 square feet of space. The company now employs close to 75 people here, up from about 50 nearly a year ago. It was ranked No. 15 on the a Business Journal’s most recent list of accounting firms.
Singer Lewak is the first tenant named for Opus Center Irvine III, the 314,074-square-foot tower that the local arm of Phoenix-based Opus West Corp. is building next to John Wayne Airport.
