COMMERCIAL
First there was mystery surrounding the new owner of Irvine’s 2323 Main Street building. Now there’s a similar level of secrecy surrounding what appears to be some upcoming tenants for the high-profile property.
The office and industrial property, which during better days for the local housing market was eyed as a site for a big condominium redevelopment, traded hands in April. The building’s at the heavily trafficked corner of Von Karman Avenue and Main Street
In a rare occurrence for Orange County’s tight-knit real estate community, many knowledgeable brokers I’ve contacted recently still don’t have a handle on who the new owner is.
Houston-based developer Hines Interests LP and Newport Beach-based real estate investment bank Buchanan Street Partners sold the property. Non-disclosure pacts have kept them from revealing the buyer.
Speculation has centered on a foreign buyer, but there’s been no confirmation of that.
Now it appears that tenants are close to moving into the property, which has been empty since shoe company American Sporting Goods Inc. moved its headquarters to Aliso Viejo nearly three years ago.
Signs are going up outside the building, and brokers who’ve been inside the building say the property is just about ready for tenants.
There still are plenty of questions remaining, since none of the tenants appear to be well-known locally.
One name listed on the building is Scuderia Development, which may or may not be the building’s owner. A company with the same name is listed as being based in Los Angeles according to state records, but I couldn’t find any additional information on the company.
Brokers say the permitting work for the building appears to have been filed by Scuderia. But no other information could be found, and they say they’re still in the dark.
Another prospective tenant, according to signs on the building, is a company listed as Bespoke AG. There’s a European clothing company that goes by the same name, but the logo of that company and the sign at 2323 Main Street aren’t similar.
The third and final company listed on the property is a shopping site called eDivvy.com, which facilitates group gifts for baby showers, birthdays and other events. State records show the company’s listed as being based in Irvine, although press reports list its headquarters in Los Angeles.
Phone calls to eDivvy executives were not returned.
MacArthur Sale
A sale of Santa Ana’s 3 MacArthur Place appears to nearing completion—and at a steep discount to what the 11-story building fetched a few years ago.
The property, owned by a division of New York-based Tishman Speyer Properties LP, was put up for sale around May, according to brokers.
According to recent report by CoStar Group Inc., the owner is expecting a sale for the 246,763-square-foot office building to be completed shortly, conditional on purchaser due diligence.
Tishman expects the sale price of the property, just off MacArthur Boulevard in Santa Ana, near the campus of First American Corp., to be $31 million, or about $125 per square foot.
Tishman paid a reported $83 million for MacArthur Place near the peak of the market, in mid-2007. The building currently is about 78% full, according to CoStar.
RESIDENTIAL
A little more than two years after first being put up for sale, San Juan Capistrano’s Blenheim Farms still is on the market—but at a discount.
The nearly 18-acre estate, which includes a horse park that hosted the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Olympic equestrian trials, recently changed listing brokerages. Adrienne Brennan, a broker with Newport Beach’s Surterre Properties, now is handling the listing.
The property currently is listed for $29.9 million, down from the original asking price of $40 million. The estate is owned by R.J. Brandes, founder of Belgravia Capital Corp., a commercial real estate finance and mortgage company sold in 1997.
Blenheim Farms features a 26-stall solid mahogany barn and covered arena, in addition to the main residence, two guest homes, formal gardens, a lap pool and spa.
Newman Update
Officials at Newport Beach-based architecture firm Newman Garrison + Partners say they’ve gotten a good deal of interest about their new urban infill product, following a story I wrote about the company in the Sept. 14 issue of the Business Journal.
If you call the company, be aware that my story should have named the three- and four-story homes project as “New Block.”
