COMMERCIAL
A big Tustin building used by Lake Forest’s Apria Healthcare Group Inc. is in the process of being vacated and possibly sold.
Carson-based landlord Watson Land Co. is looking to sell a 153,238-square-foot office it owns at 2521 Michelle Drive. Apria, the building’s only tenant, is moving out of the two-story office shortly to a new location in Irvine.
The building is available for lease,at monthly rates of about $1.15 per square foot,or for sale by the Newport Beach office of CB Richard Ellis.
A price was not disclosed for the building, which is being marketed as a potential corporate headquarters building. Comparable office and research and development properties in the area have been trading for about $217 per square foot.
The Michelle Drive property is Watson’s only building listed in OC. Most of the developer’s industrial and flex properties are in Los Angeles County.
Apria,which provides breathing, drug and other treatments to people in their homes,is consolidating some operations and moving its Tustin operations to a location closer to its Lake Forest headquarters, company officials said. It had been in the Tustin location for more than 13 years.
The new building, at 15091 Bake Parkway in Irvine, will provide home oxygen and other respiratory services to patients in South and Central Orange County. It will also house Apria’s Southern California regional management team, its regional oxygen transfill center and regional warehouse among other uses, company officials said.
The Bake Parkway location is smaller in size than the Tustin building. Apria recently consolidated some billing and patient management operations in Phoenix and Denver, the company said. It moved about 80 jobs into those two operations and needed less square footage in OC as a result, according to the company.
A separate office in Tustin used by Coram Corp., which Apria ac-quired last year, remains operational, Apria officials said.
Summit Lease
Developer Parker Properties LP landed its biggest tenant yet for 30 Enterprise, one of two offices the Aliso Viejo-based developer opened last year at its Summit Office Campus.
Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch & Lomb Inc. signed a five-year lease to occupy 24,000 square feet of space at the Aliso Viejo building.
It’ll be taking up a floor at the four-story building and will be relocating its global surgical headquarters to the office.
Vita Reed, our healthcare reporter, wrote in July that the lease was in the works. Earlier this year, Bausch bought Eyeonics Inc., an Aliso Viejo company that makes replacement lenses used in cataract surgeries.
Ted Snell, Carol Trapani and Allison Schneider of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. represented Parker Properties and financial partner RREEF Alternative Investments, part of Deutsche Bank AG, in the lease. Greg Ficke of Cushman & Wakefield Inc. represented Bausch & Lomb.
The buildings at 20 and 30 Enterprise opened last year and total about 260,000 square feet. The entire Summit office park totals about 1.8 million square feet.
Cushman Retail Expands
Cushman & Wakefield is expanding its retail advisers group, which oversees the marketing of retail shopping centers, into Orange County.
The retail advisers group is opening up an office in Irvine, in the 2020 Main Street building where Cushman’s core brokerage operations already are based. The Irvine office will be overseen by Executive Director Pete Bethea, Senior Director John Jennings and directors Rob Ippolito and Nick Alford.
Cushman’s retail advisers group already counts a Southern California portfolio of about 11 million square feet, the company said. It will be expanding into Ontario next year.
Eaton’s Expansion
Last month, my colleague Dan Beighley wrote a page 1 story about plane parts maker Eaton Aerospace LLC’s consolidation of its local operations in the Irvine Spectrum.
The company, a division of Cleveland-based industrial equipment maker Eaton Corp., signed a 10-year lease for about 140,000 square feet of office and industrial space at 9650 Jeronimo Road.
Starting up Eaton’s operations in the Spectrum will take more than just a lease,the company recently filed an application with Irvine to approve development of a proposed jet fuel test facility at the site.
The majority of the space at the new location is set to be used for manufacturing by Eaton’s subsidiary Argo-Tech Corp., a maker of fuel pumps for military jets.
Interior tenant improvement work at the site is being handled by Brea’s KPRS Construction Services Inc. The plan is to have the building ready by the end of the year, though renovations might not be done until the second quarter, according Eaton officials.
RESIDENTIAL
Lake Forest’s Advanced Real Estate Services Inc. is converting a Santa Ana building into apartments. But, unlike other recent apartment conversions, the property isn’t a failed condominium development.
The California Palms Suites, a 207-room hotel on Harbor Boulevard, is being converted into 189 apartments by the developer.
Advanced Real Estate got a $13.5 million first mortgage construction loan for the project from the Los Angeles office of NorthMarq Capital Inc.
