Shea Breaks Ground on Year’s First Big Project
Donahue Schriber Does $62M in April Deals; Condo Sales Make Comeback?
REAL ESTATE
by Daniel D. Williams
COMMERCIAL
Vantis, the $350 million, 40-acre Shea Properties office complex planned for Aliso Viejo, has broken ground.
Irvine-based Snyder Langston is building the first phase of the project, a five-story class A office building with 177,000 square feet and 726 parking spaces.
Vantis marks the first major construction project to get under way this year. In the first quarter, OC counted 1.1 million square feet of office space under construction, though no new projects broke ground.
Negative net absorption for the first quarter was 220,000 square feet, up from a negative 5,000 square feet in the fourth quarter, according to Delta Associates Inc.
Late last year, Vantis landed Seattle-based Safeco Corp. as the anchor tenant for the first building. Safeco is taking 70% of the building, or about 120,000 square feet.
Tim Joyce of the Colliers Seeley International Inc.’s Orange County office is marketing the rest of the building.
Plans for the first building call for a steel-frame building, glass exterior and a curtain-wall tower that will anchor the west side. Features include natural stone flooring and wood paneling in the main lobby. The building is to be done in March 2003.
The entire Vantis project calls for 1.5 million square feet of office space and 30,000 square feet of retail space. Plans call for nine, three- to eight-story buildings ranging from 75,000 square feet to 260,000 square feet. The buildings are set to link to each other through a system of walkways.
Taisei Building Maruchan Plant
Cypress-based Taisei Construction, a unit of Japan’s Taisei Corp., landed design and construction work for a 277,200-square-foot processing plant and warehouse for noodle soup maker Maruchan Inc. of Irvine.
According to Emery Molner, senior vice president of Taisei Construction, the facility is set to be built in Richmond, Va., and is the third project the two companies have worked on together. Taisei also did Maruchan’s 388,000-square-foot Irvine plant. Maruchan is a unit of Japan’s Toyo Suisan Kaisha Ltd.
The scope of the current project includes building a new 127,800-square-foot warehouse and a 149,400-plant expansion. The expansion includes 27,400 square feet of new construction, converting 85,200 square feet of warehouse into production space and adding a 36,800 square-foot mezzanine to the existing warehouse.
The expansion stands to double Maruchan’s production capacity by making room for up to four extra production lines.
Donahue Does $62M in Deals
Costa Mesa-based Donahue Schriber Realty Group LP continues to buy.
The retail developer and property owner has acquired three more centers, bringing its April buying to five properties worth $62 million.
The buys include the 110,188-square-foot Union Hills Village in Phoenix, acquired for $12 million. The center counts Safeway, Walgreen’s and Blockbuster Video as tenants. The purchase brings Donahue Schriber’s Phoenix holdings to five properties.
Two other buys include $9 million for Valley Shopping Center, a 107,005-square-foot retail center in Sacramento, and the $18 million buy of Plaza Sorrento in San Diego.
“These three properties will broaden the geographic diversification within market areas in California and Arizona where Donahue Schriber already has a significant presence,” said Mark Whitfield, executive vice president of development with Donahue Schriber.
RESIDENTIAL
The Orange County office of The Meyers Group released numbers for first quarter showing condominium sales on the rise.
Condo sales jumped 27% in the quarter. So far this year, OC condos have averaged $290,276, vs. $228,679 a year ago.
What’s driving condo sales? The inability of builders to keep pace with the demand for homes is part of the reason. And the worst days of condo litigation seemed to be over. Rising prices for standalone homes also are a factor.
In an interesting statistic, condos outpaced single-family homes in average price per square foot. Condos were up 15.6% to $214.44 per square foot in the first quarter, compared to single-family homes up 0.4% to $194.62
Overall, home sales have been strong this year, with single-family sales eclipsing the same period last year by 2.6%. Sales stand at 1,792 compared to 1,746 the same time a year ago.
In the best bit of news for the residential market, cancellation rates are down across the board. Cancellation rates for single-family homes are down to 7.1% from 9% at this time a year ago. For condos, the numbers look even better with cancellations down to 3.6% from 8.8% last year.
Bits and Pieces:
Aliso Viejo-based Gillings + Good-Man Architects LLP has completed work on one project and begun work on two others. The firm just completed phase one of IKEA International AS’ 834,000-square-foot West Coast distribution center in the Tejon Ranch Industrial Development of Kern County. Gillings also is designing two projects in Santa Maria: a 40,000-square-foot light industrial project known as McCoy Industrial Center and a 105,000-square-foot warehouse near the Santa Maria Airport.
