The city of Laguna Niguel could soon see one of its largest for-sale housing developments in years go up on an office site near Crown Valley Road and the San Diego (5) Freeway.
A venture between Newport Beach-based Blackwood Real Estate and Dana Point-based Walbern Investments USA LLC recently listed a roughly one-acre development site at 27762 Forbes Road for sale.
The site currently holds a 22,350-square-foot office that was built in the 1970s; under the current plans, the building would make way for a 100-unit, podium-style condo development running seven stories, including multiple levels of parking.
The bulk of the condos would be two-bedroom units running a little more than 1,000 square feet, with a fair amount priced under the area’s current FHA lending limits, which currently stand at $679,650 in Orange County. FHA loans allow for down payments of as little as 3.5% and are federally guaranteed by the FHA, a unit of the department of Housing and Urban Development.
Irvine-based brokerage firm WD Land has the listing for the proposed development, which is being marketed under the Icon Laguna name. An asking price for the property, which has been re-entitled for housing, hasn’t been disclosed. Offers are due this month.
Forbes Road—on the west side of the freeway across from the Kaleidoscope entertainment center—has seen its share of residential development in recent years but with a rental focus. More than 1,000 mid-rise apartment units have been built within walking distance of Icon Laguna.
The site sits next to Broadstone Cavora, a 348-unit apartment project being built by Alliance Residential Co. of Phoenix. Blackwood also acquired that former office park site, on about five acres and entitled it for housing, before selling it to Alliance in 2014 for a reported $24.1 million.
The Blackwood-Walbern venture has owned the Icon Laguna site for three years, having paid about $4.8 million for it, CoStar Group Inc. records show.
Rents at nearby complexes can run upwards of $4,500 a month, according to WD Land’s marketing material for the site.
After adjusting for real estate taxes, HOA dues, insurance premiums and the interest deduction benefit, “a renter paying $4,500 a month can afford a mortgage of $850,000,” according to the brokerage, whose Sal Provenza and Curt Crandall have the listing.
Google Growth
Google has grabbed more space at its namesake office park in Irvine for local operations.
The company recently leased another floor of space, totaling 22,159 square feet, at the 19520 Jamboree Road building, according to CoStar records. It already occupied another floor at the building, according to the real estate market tracker’s data. It will move into the new space in November.
The office is part of the five-building Google Center campus near the intersection of Jamboree Road and MacArthur Boulevard.
Google occupies space in at least two other buildings at the campus, which was previously called the Impac Center. It now occupies about 150,000 square feet at the campus, which totals 573,000 square feet.
Two for TruAmerica
Los Angeles-based apartment investor TruAmerica Multifamily LLC has made its second biggest Orange County acquisition of the year, paying $85.8 million for Fountain Valley’s Corte Bella complex.
The 251-unit property sold for about $342,000 per unit in a deal brokered by the Irvine office of Moran & Co.
The property was built in 1969. It’s west of the San Diego (405) Freeway next to Slater Avenue.
The 33-building property includes a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartment homes with private garages. It was 97% occupied at the time of closing. Property records list the seller as a unit of Aliso Viejo-based Shea Properties.
The new owners plan to upgrade the property by adding washer-dryer connections to each apartment and adding new tenant amenities, such as a business center, pet spa and bike storage.
In February, TruAmerica paid a reported $90.5 million for Pacific Shores, a 264-unit complex in Huntington Beach about two miles from Corte Bella.
TruAmerica said it has bought about $750 million worth of apartments over the past 12 months, adding nearly 4,000 units to its portfolio, which now totals 36,000 units. About a third of the recent deals were in Southern California.
