A 4-acre development site in Buena Park that once was part of a larger Nabisco food manufacturing facility has seen a change in ownership.
New Orleans-based Premier Automotive Group, a car dealership operator that has another location in the city, recently closed on the purchase of land at 7301 Artesia Blvd.
The property changed hands for $3.7 million, according to Avison Young brokers who brokered the deal. It’s part of a 23-acre site just off the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway west of the Auto Center area in Buena Park that formerly was used by Nabisco for food manufacturing.
The prominent site, which served as a striking visual entry for drivers coming to Orange County from Los Angeles County for about 40 years, has gone unused since the Nabisco plant closed in 2005. The building was demolished and removed between 2007 and 2009.
Premier Automotive has planned to develop the site for several months; city filings show the new owner wants to build a 26,307-square-foot facility there. It will hold a new Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram dealership, according to Avison Young.
It’ll be the fourth location in Southern California for Premier Automotive, which also operates Premier Chevrolet of Buena Park at 6195 Auto Center Drive.
Construction on the new location is scheduled to start by early next year and be finished in a year.
Irvine-based builder City Ventures LLC, which got the site entitled a few years ago, sold it, its second recent sale there; this past summer it sold a parcel to Irvine-based homebuilder TRI Pointe Group Inc., which is planning a 149-unit townhome project.
Construction also is under way at a four-story, 102-room Hampton Inn & Suites on another portion of the site that’s being developed by Artesia-based hotel developer A.B. Hospitality Inc.
Jodi Meade, Avison Young principal and practice leader of the firm’s automotive properties group, represented Premier Automotive Group in the deal. City Ventures represented itself.
$9M Model
New Home Co. said it’s about reached the halfway sales mark at its two high-end housing projects at the Newport Coast community of Crystal Cove, which opened in June.
The Aliso Viejo-based company said it’s sold 27 of the 55 homes in the two enclaves it’s building—Coral Crest and Coral Canyon—whose homes start at around $5 million.
Some are going for much more than that. One of the six model homes the company built at the project, a 6,576-square-foot, souped-up Coral Crest home that features ocean views, is now on the market.
It’s priced at about $9.1 million, the builder said, and has five bedrooms and 5 ½ bathrooms.
Scientific Expansion
Irvine Scientific, a Santa Ana-based manufacturer of cell culture products for researchers and clinicians, is expanding into a new building a few miles from its headquarters, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
The company recently signed a 48,000-square-foot lease at 17112 Armstrong Ave., a flex and light manufacturing building a few blocks from the southern edge of the Tustin Legacy development.
Irvine Scientific is moving into the building next month, property records show. The facility previously was used by the Superior Court of California to store case records.
Jeff Hirsch and Frank Adler with Lee & Associates represented the landlord, Remec Inc., in the new lease transaction, and Clyde Stauff with Colliers International represented the tenant, according to CoStar records.
Irvine Scientific’s main facility and headquarters on Warner Avenue is about 32,000 square feet, according to CoStar records.
That facility includes “liquid and powder manufacturing suites, a newly expanded R&D facility, a quality control laboratory, dedicated temperature controlled raw material warehousing, and a finished product distribution capacity,” according to the company’s website.
The company also has a few other facilities in the immediate area.
