COMMERCIAL
Newport Beach developer Olen Properties Corp.’s big office campus in Brea survived the fires that swept through the area in November.
Now there are signs that the office owner’s roughly 700,000-square-foot Olen Pointe Brea office campus will survive the subprime mortgage implosion as well.
The former Brea headquarters of ResMae Mortgage Corp., at 6 Pointe Drive, landed two big tenants late last month. The leases will fill up 54,000 square feet in a 132,000-square-foot building that’s been empty since earlier this year.
Nature’s Best, a distributor of vitamins, supplements and health foods, is moving its headquarters to one floor at the building from elsewhere in Brea. The company, which has yearly sales of $300 million and has been in Orange County for more than 20 years, signed an eight-year lease for 27,226 square feet.
In 2007, Nature’s Best moved its distribution operations from Brea to a 409,588-square-foot warehouse in Chino. At the time of that deal, company officials stressed they wanted to keep their offices and headquarters in OC.
Also signing an office deal at 6 Point Drive: Apollo Hospitality Group, which inked a 7.5-year lease for 26,589 square feet. The company, which does design and renovation work for hotels, is moving from an industrial property it owns in La Habra.
Six Pointe Drive is the newest office building at Olen’s Brea campus, which includes both office space as well as four restaurants. A new, 260-apartment complex is also going up at the campus, which runs along the Orange (57) Freeway. November’s fires came close to the property, but the buildings avoided any damage.
Olen Point is one of the largest office complexes in Brea, which has about 4.1 million square feet of office space.
ResMae moved into the five-story building upon its opening in 2006 but vacated the building in May, following the subprime lender’s 2007 bankruptcy and acquisition by Citadel Investment Group LLC. The loan servicing division was subsequently relocated to the Midwest.
The master lease for the property still is in effect. The Nature’s Best and Apollo deals are subleases. Another deal for nearly two floors at the building also could be finalized shortly, said Tom Abel, first vice president for the Anaheim office of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., which is handling the subleasing for the property.
The remaining space at the building is being marketed at $2.25 per square foot, Abel said. Other buildings at the Olen campus have space available for between $2.75 and $2.90 per square foot per month, according to the landlord’s Web site.
Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Rick Sherburne, Travis Boyd and Alex Hayden represented Nature’s Best in its lease, while Scott Seal from Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services Inc.’s represented Apollo.
Atherton Sales
Portland’s Guardian Management LLC has done its second deal here since this summer.
Guardian, a real estate investment company that specializes in apartment deals, said it has reached a deal to buy the bulk of apartments owned by Irvine-based Atherton-Newport Investments LLC. The deal includes about 4,000 apartments in Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix and Seattle. Details of the transaction weren’t disclosed.
That deal follows Guardian’s August acquisition of Irvine-based Sperry Van Ness’ Southern California, Arizona and Oregon brokerage offices, which made it the largest Sperry Van Ness franchise owner.
Atherton-Newport had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. About another 1,000 apartments, the remainder of the company’s portfolio, are expected to be sold in a separate deal.
Guardian’s acquisition is still dependent on the court’s approval.
The company was one of about a dozen to have inquired about Atherton-Newport’s portfolio, said Robert Opera, a partner with Newport Beach-based Winthrop Couchot Professional Corp., a bankruptcy law firm that’s representing creditors in the case.
Atherton-Newport is believed to have paid about $390 million from 2005 to 2007 for the debt-laden assets being bought by Guardian.
It owed close to $39 million to creditors at the time of the filing; creditors include several dozen prominent athletes that the company targeted as investors. Bankruptcy court records show the company owing nearly $1.2 million to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim slugger Vladimir Guerrero and about $425,000 to former New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing, among others.
Job Posting
Since reporting last month on the 200,000-square-foot lease the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. signed for an office in the Irvine Spectrum, I’ve gotten a good amount of calls from people inquiring about how the FDIC plans to go about its hiring for the office.
That interest probably increased after the initial job postings for the office showed the FDIC would be paying six-figure salaries. About 600 jobs are expected to be filled in total.
Here’s what the FDIC has to say about the jobs: All hiring for the FDIC positions is handled online, through www.fdic.gov. The agency also has set up a phone line, (800) 523-8517, to answer questions specifically related to hiring for the Irvine office, officials said.
