Dallas-based retail property investor Dunhill Partners Inc. has bought a shopping center in Laguna Hills that caters to high-end design and home-furnishing tenants.
Dunhill recently completed the purchase of Laguna Design Center, a multibuilding property on 14 acres at the intersection of Aliso Creek Road and Alicia Parkway next to the Chet Holifield Federal Building.
The 234,000-square-foot retail property sold for about $53.7 million, or nearly $230 per square foot, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
The seller was an investment group managed by Santa Ana-based Colton Cos., which has been shedding many of its local assets over the past year. It paid a reported $21.5 million for the center in 2000.
Laguna Design Center was about 95% leased at the time of the latest sale, according to property records.
It has 40 showrooms that hold a host of high-end designers, furniture companies and related tenants that sell products to professional interior designers and other similar firms.
The center has long specialized in products unavailable to consumers at typical retail stores. About five years ago, though, it began opening some of its showrooms to the public.
The purchase is Dunhill Partners’ first in Orange County, according to its website.
Last year it paid a reported $147 million for the Shoppes at Chino Hills, a 377,966-square-foot mall a few miles from the edge of OC in southwest San Bernardino County. It bought the property from Newport Beach-based MX3 Ventures, which paid $94.5 million for it in 2010.
MX3 is a real estate company headed by Manouch Moshayed, former chairman and chief executive of Santa Ana-based data storage maker STEC Inc., and his family.
Dunhill also has Southern California holdings in Riverside and Vacaville.
Phoenix Moves
Irvine-based Passco Cos. LLC, an investor in commercial and multifamily properties, has made a big acquisition in the suburbs of Phoenix.
The company paid nearly $82 million for the 389-unit Almeria at Ocotillo apartment complex in the town of Chandler, a little more than 10 miles southeast of Phoenix.
The property traded hands for about $210,000 per unit. It was sold by Scottsdale-based developer PB Bell, which built the upscale complex in two phases in 2014 and 2015.
It’s Passco’s second notable apartment acquisition in the region recently. It paid close to $52 million for a 218-unit complex in Scottsdale early this year and sold a nearby apartment property this year for about $45.5 million, according to local news reports.
Passco also owns a retail center in Chandler, according to its website.
Chandler and the Mesa-Gilbert area of Phoenix is becoming the area’s version of Silicon Valley, and its real estate market has drawn a number of Orange County investors recently.
Notable investors include Newport Beach-based Olen Properties, which has bought several rental properties in the region since early last year in deals topping $100 million.
Blackstone Gig
An Irvine Company executive is part of the team at a new nontraded real estate investment fund proposed by New York-based Blackstone Group that plans a big acquisition push.
The private-equity giant said this month that it’s seeking to raise $5 billion for Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, its first nontraded REIT.
The REIT is intended to invest in commercial properties that generate stable rental income, including apartments, shopping centers and hotels, according to regulatory filings.
One of the directors of the Blackstone venture is Richard Gilchrist, who served as president of the investment properties group at Newport Beach-based Irvine Co. from 2006 to 2011.
Gilchrist now is an Irvine Co. senior adviser “responsible for acquisitions and investments,” Blackstone’s regulatory filings show.
The current president of Irvine Co.’s investment properties group, Ray Wirta, also is part of two Costa Mesa-based REITs that operate under the Rich Uncles banner, which aims to “make direct real estate investment easier and less expensive for the small investor.”
