Greenlaw Partners has added another notable property to its portfolio of offices next to the Outlets at Orange shopping center.
The Irvine-based real estate investor this month closed on the purchase of 3800 Chapman, an eight-story office near the intersection of Chapman Avenue and Lewis Street and the northern edge of the shopping center.
The 169,300-square-foot building sold for about $29.8 million, or $176 per square foot.
An affiliate of Greenwich, Conn.-based Starwood Capital sold the building, which is nearly full.
The building’s largest tenant is American Advisors Group, a lending company with headquarters in the building. The company renewed and expanded its lease around the same time as the building’s sale.
American Advisors, which bills itself as the country’s largest reverse mortgage company, now leases about 110,000 square feet after taking an extra floor of space, according to Curtis Ellmore, a senior vice president with JLL who represented the tenant in the new deal.
Greenlaw bought the property in a venture with longtime financial partner Walton Street Capital LLC in Chicago.
The companies have partnered on several local deals in the immediate vicinity of the Outlets at Orange, including the $56 million buy of the 334,000-square-foot City Plaza tower in 2013 and last year’s $45.5 million purchase of the City Parkway Collection office portfolio at 500 and 600 City Parkway W.
Greenlaw’s portfolio of offices next to the shopping center just off the Garden Grove (22) Freeway now totals about 773,000 square feet and was bought for a combined $131 million.
It’s one of the largest collections of office space in Orange County controlled by a single landlord.
“There’s only a couple spots like this” in the county, said Wil Smith, principal and founder of Greenlaw.
Smith likens the area to the Park Place mixed-use campus in Irvine that’s largely controlled by Irvine-based LBA Realty.
He said there’s an opportunity for new development on the properties the company now owns in Orange, similar to Park Place in Irvine, which is getting a slate of new apartment and hotel development and could see more office space built.
The parcels Greenlaw owns next to the Orange shopping center, which is owned by Indianapolis-based Simon Properties Group Inc., encompass more than 20 acres and have a large amount of surface parking used by the office tenants.
If some of the excess space is converted to parking structures, the freed-up land could handle apartment and other development.
Smith said that up to 800 podium-style apartments could be built on Greenlaw’s land, although a time frame for the projects hasn’t been finalized.
The company is talking to the city and other property owners in the area to work out a plan for the project, he said.
Greenlaw is also exploring building another office tower or perhaps a hotel on excess land it owns next to the 19-story City Plaza tower, one of the most prominent offices in Central OC.
Big Sales
Greenlaw, despite the recent Orange purchase, has done more dispositions than acquisitions in the past few weeks, with more than $80 million in office and retail sales in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, as well as the Inland Empire.
Its recent non-OC deals involving local buyers include the sale of a two-building portion of Waterside Center in Ontario to Newport Beach-based Buchanan Street Partners.
The two midrise buildings, which total nearly 160,000 square feet and are nearly full, traded hands for more than $30 million. The property is Buchanan Street’s third in the Inland Empire.
Greenlaw and Walton Street Capital paid a reported $34 million in 2012 for the two buildings and a third office at the campus. The complex is next to Ontario International Airport.
