Backed by a new financing deal and a flurry of recent leasing activity, the owners of the Intersect office campus in Irvine are almost finished with nearly $25 million worth of redevelopment work at the four-building project near John Wayne Airport.
Next on tap is completing one of the most unique courtyards and tenant amenity packages added to Orange County’s office market recently, and finding a few chickens.
The local office of development and investment firm Hines is a few months shy of completing most of the redevelopment at the 436,000-square-foot former home of Washington Mutual that’s being turned into a multitenant campus.
It bought the midrise offices nearly three years ago in a venture with Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co. in a deal valued at about $120 million.
In May, the ownership group said it refinanced the office campus for $144 million with New York Life Insurance, a loan arranged by the local office of HFF.
It said it will use loan proceeds to retire debt and fund the remaining leasing of the property, which is now about 60% full. It was largely empty upon the 2015 sale.
Club Pilates will open its new headquarters in a few weeks on the ground floor of one building. Other recent tenant signups include the local office of Scottsdale-based Troon Golf LLC, San Francisco-based IA Interior Architects, Bethesda, Md.-based Marriott International and wellness company Amare Global, whose headquarters are at the campus.
Market reception to completed upgrades has been strong, said Ray Lawler, senior managing director of Hines’ Newport Beach office. They include a ground-floor gym that opens onto the courtyard; new lobbies; a basketball court; cafe; conference center; and upgraded parking structures.
“Our goal for this project was to build an alternative to brand-new development,” he said. What’s more, the rents the landlord’s been able to charge are “like new development, if not higher.”
Any tenants overly concerned about rents will soon have some nice spots on campus to drink their worries away.
Nearly $3 million is being spent to build a ground-floor restaurant, outdoor patio site and courtyard amenities area, highlighted by a two-story shipping container in the center of the campus—a first of its type in Irvine.
The shipping container component will serve coffee, juice and grab-n-go food throughout the day, and craft beer, wine and appetizers at night.
The Patio Group, a restaurant division of San Diego-based American National Investments, is heading the food and drink component in its first restaurant location in Orange County.
Also in the courtyard is a garden area where a variety of foods are being grown for tenant use. A few chicken coops have also been built—Lawler said the poultry addition was his idea.
The chickens will be added once courtyard construction wraps up.
Water Plant
The South Coast Water District is proceeding with plans to build an ocean water desalination facility in Dana Point that could cost nearly $100 million.
A proposal for the facility, which would have an initial daily capacity of up to five million gallons, with potential for future expansions taking it up to 15 million gallons a day, has been in the works for several years.
The water district released a draft environmental impact report last month for the project, which would be on about 30 acres of district-owned property near San Juan Creek behind a Doubletree Hotel. The report will be available for public review over the next two months.
The project would provide “a reliable, local and drought-proof water supply that does not rely on expensive imported water and is environmentally friendly in addition to providing a local, reliable and secure water supply” for the area, the water district said in a statement.
The facility would “also provide emergency backup water supplies, should delivery of imported water be disrupted.”
