Sares-Regis Group is moving on several fronts in the new millennium.
Besides hoping to develop a new building for Webvan, the Irvine-based real estate firm has made a bid to buy 9.8 acres at Jamboree Road and Main Street in Irvine.
The site includes a 30,000-square-foot office building and an older, 90,000-square-foot industrial facility.
The site adjacent to Metropolitan Life’s Century Centre and across from Jamboree Center is entitled for 466,000 square feet of space. Many local real estate observers had believed a new owner would turn the property into a high-rise office site. But if Sares-Regis closes on the property, sources say the developer will do a rehab of the existing buildings and try to attract tenants interested in low-rise R & D; or corporate headquarters space.
The current owner, Metropolitan Life, had been asking nearly $13 million for the properties. SaresRegis wants the site for around $9 million, according to sources close to negotiations.
The company refused to comment on any discussions with Metropolitan Life.
Sares-Regis won the proposed Webvan site along Icon Drive off Glenn Ranch Road in Foothill Ranch from Burke Real Estate Group and other bidders with an offer to owner ProLogis Trust of around $11 a square foot.
“It’s a great location regardless of whether Webvan moves in,” said Burke partner Rob Guthrie, whose company owns a nearby parcel that it wanted to develop in tandem. “They got a great deal on it.”
ProLogis purchased the property in 1995 for about $5 a square foot, according to real estate sources.
Lin Stinson, a principal of Providence Realty Group Inc. of Laguna Niguel, estimated that industrial property in the area is currently going for around $15 a square foot. As the broker representing both parties in the deal, he said ProLogis was willing to lower its price in exchange for a relatively short escrow period.
The result, say others, will be a deal with Webvan for a 15-year lease valued at more than $15 million in a building to be developed by Sares-Regis.
The new Webvan center would go up next to sunglasses maker Oakley Inc.’s headquarters and join other major distribution operations in Foothill Ranch by Nike and Wet Seal.
“It will just further Foothill Ranch’s reputation as a distribution location,” said Mark Zuvich, director of Cushman & Wakefield’s Irvine Spectrum office.
