One of Fullerton’s largest multi-tenant office complexes, Fullerton Towers, has traded hands for $45.5 million.
Los Angeles-based Barker Pacific, in a venture with Las Vegas’ Kingsbarn Realty Capital, recently closed on the purchase of the four-building complex, which counts a pair of seven-story buildings at the intersection of North Harbor Boulevard and Brea Boulevard, each totaling more than 110,000 square feet.
Along with a pair of smaller buildings, the entire Fullerton Towers complex runs about 230,000 square feet. Barker Pacific and Kingsbarn paid about $200 per square foot for the entire property, which was sold by a venture between San Juan Capistrano’s Birtcher Anderson and Switzerland’s UBS.
It’s the most expensive office sale reported in Fullerton for 2021 and is second among all commercial property sales in the city for the year, trailing the $168 million sale of the Amplifi apartment complex in Fullerton (see story, page 13).
Birtcher Anderson and UBS about three years ago took the wraps off a major revamp of the complex, where monthly rents currently run about $2.75 per square foot, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
The property is less than a mile from the Fullerton’s downtown and is about a mile south of Providence St. Jude Medical Center.
Del Taco Campus
The deal marks the only Orange County building in Barker Pacific’s portfolio, according to the company’s website. Other buildings it owns include Los Angeles’ 626 Wilshire Boulevard and San Francisco’s One Sansome Street office towers.
For Kingsbarn, the Fullerton deal caps an active 2021 for office investments in OC.
In June, the company paid $40.5 million for the Lake Forest office campus that holds the headquarters for Del Taco Restaurants Inc. (Nasdaq: TACO) and other tenants.
Lake Forest’s Palm Terrace, a three-building campus just off Bake Parkway near the Baker Ranch residential development, totals 155,795 square feet, and sold for about $260 per square foot.
Del Taco in December announced plans to be sold to San Diego’s Jack in the Box (Nasdaq: JACK), for $455 million. Its plans post-sale, including any potential changes to its OC operations, have not been disclosed.
Improvements Planned
The new owners of Fullerton Towers took out a $36.6 million loan with Western Alliance Bank to fund the purchase, according to property records.
The campus “is located near many of Downtown Fullerton’s attractive recreational amenities, as well as being less than a mile from St. Jude Medical Center and North Orange County Justice Center,” according to Barker Pacific.
The new ownership team “is making strategic improvements and foresees a bright future with the project,” it said.
