Orange County’s largest public company, Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (NYSE:EW), appears to be expanding its local operations and is taking up space in areas outside its Irvine home.
The $30 billion valued medical device maker, best known for its line of minimally invasive heart valves, recently inked a deal to lease three floors at the 535 Anton Blvd. building in Costa Mesa, according to data from real estate market tracker CoStar Group Inc.
The lease runs about 62,400 square feet and begins in March, according to CoStar’s data. The deal is one of the largest office leases of the past quarter reported in OC.
The 535 Anton office is part of The Met, the three 12-story building office complex alongside the San Diego (405) Freeway, in Costa Mesa’s Arts District.
The complex totals about 800,000 square feet and includes a 51,000-square-foot 24 Hour Fitness. It’s been renovated over the past few years by Costa Mesa’s McCarthy Cook & Co., which owns the complex in a venture with Madison, N.J.-based Prudential Real Estate Investors. They bought the complex about three years ago for a reported $233 million.
The renovations are resulting in a large amount of leasing of late. Tenants leasing space at the complex recently, according to brokerage reports, include financial firms Allied Bank and Synchrony Financial, as well as infrastructure advisory firm Moffatt & Nichol and coworking operator Spaces.
CoStar records indicate about 200,000 square feet of recently signed leases kicking off in 2019 at the office complex.
The local real estate moves for Edwards, which employs about 4,400 people in OC and is the county’s 15th-largest employer, have been a big source of news the past year.
The Business Journal broke the news last August on Edwards filing plans with Irvine to significantly expand its main campus along Red Hill Avenue.
Development plans call for the device maker to build two office and laboratory buildings, an employee amenities facility, and a parking structure on 7.6 acres next to its current headquarters.
The buildings would total about 471,450 square feet and be built in three phases over a period of years, city records indicate. Early stage work is already underway.
Existing office, lab, manufacturing, warehouse and other space at Edwards’ current 26-acre campus total 660,475 square feet.
Edwards also leases office space elsewhere in Irvine, outside the main campus. It has bought a few other smaller-sized offices near its headquarters in recent years.
ARES in Ontario
Irvine-based apartment investor Advanced Real Estate Services Inc. ended 2018 with a bang, snapping up a 194-unit complex in Ontario from Los Angeles-based TruAmerica Multifamily.
Financial terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.
The property, currently called Mountain Summit, sits just south of the 10 Freeway on the western edge of the city.
ARES said it plans to rename the complex “West Fifth Apartments” and will spend about $5.5 million in upgrades for the property, which previously was a condo development; there are five additional units in the complex that it didn’t buy.
“We own a 116-unit building in Montclair on the same street and less than a mile and a half from this property,” ARES President Richard Julian said in a statement.
“With our current upgrades [at the Montclair project], we have been able to achieve more than a $200 premium in monthly rents from what Mountain Summit is achieving today,” Julian said.
ARES currently owns and operates over 8,500 units throughout Southern California. It estimated those properties have a market value of more than $2.5 billion.
“We are very bullish on the Inland Empire market,” Julian said. “It has been one of the top performing regions in the nation over the past few years. Job growth continues to escalate yet multifamily construction is not keeping pace.”
