Landsea Homes has moved a little closer to the sea, and to one of its more upscale developments.
The 5-year-old homebuilder moved its headquarters from Irvine to Newport Beach last month. It’s taking up shop at the 660 Newport Center Drive office tower, where it leases 10,671 square feet.
The 16-story building is owned by Newport Beach-based Irvine Co. Other notable tenants include law firm Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, as well as telecom infrastructure firm Mobilitie LLC.
“It was important for us to establish a strong corporate headquarters presence in a thriving area that can support the ongoing expansion and growth of our local divisional operations in Southern California, Northern California, Arizona and the Northeast,” Landsea Homes Chief Executive John Ho said in a statement.
Landsea’s headquarters was previously at 7525 Irvine Center Drive in the Irvine Spectrum area.
The builder’s Southern California division employees will remain at the Spectrum office.
The company recently hired Tom Baine as president of its Southern California division. He previously served as vice president of operations for the local office of Taylor Morrison.
Landsea Homes is the U.S. division of China-based homebuilder Landsea Group. It started its domestic operations in 2013.
It made its first local headlines in 2015 when it bought a 96-acre residential development site in Lake Forest previously known as Portola Center South. It paid about $177 million for the site, according to prior reports.
The site is now called IronRidge. It’s on Glenn Ranch Road near the intersection of El Toro Road and the Foothill Transportation Corridor (241) toll road.
Development plans call for 608 homes in total, with LandSea leading the bulk of the sales. It sold a 163-home portion of its land at IronRidge to Los Angeles-based KB Home last year in a $40.5 million deal.
The development is now selling its first batch of homes. Landsea has sold 84 homes, while KB Home has 22 sales to date, according to the company.
In the Lido Village area of Newport Beach, Landsea is readying a second Orange County project: Lido Villas, a 23-unit townhome development.
The three-story homes will range from 1,716 to 2,289 square feet.
Landsea paid $25.5 million for the 1.2-acre site late last year in one of the most expensive infill residential land deals per acre reported in OC, according to property records.
Presales there will begin in October, the builder said.
Tampa Two-Step
San Juan Capistrano-based Birtcher Anderson Realty has picked up its second big industrial park near Tampa, Fla., since late last year.
The real estate investor partnered with Denver-based JCR Capital to buy Center Point, a 236,229-square-foot industrial business park in the Eastside submarket of Tampa.
The six-building park cost $19.5 million and includes excess land that’s entitled for more development, according to Birtcher Anderson, which paid $40 million in December to buy another Tampa business park, this one running 686,000 square feet and called Tri-County Business Park.
“The vibrant Tampa economy is supporting strong leasing demand and rent growth in this product type,” Chief Executive Bob Anderson said.
The two deals in the area help “us to establish a critical mass for the hands-on management required for business parks,” Anderson said.
FirstService Growth
Irvine-based property management firm FirstService Residential is expanding its operations in the Spectrum area.
The company, which bills itself as the largest residential management company in the state, recently added another 10,600 square feet of space at 15261 Laguna Canyon Road.
The building is part of Irvine Co.’s Discovery Business Center office park, which also holds FirstServices’ headquarters, a nearly 45,000-square-foot building next door that it occupies.
I.E. Industrial
Newport Beach-based CapRock Partners has sold a nearly 150-acre chunk of land in Ontario to Quebec-based Ivanhoé Cambridge, where an 11-building industrial project is planned. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
CapRock will be staying on as a development partner for the project, which is expected to hold 3 million square feet of space when built out. Ivanhoé said the project will have a value of about $450 million when completed.
The largest building for the project will run about 1 million square feet. Construction is scheduled start in mid-2019.
It’s called Colony Commerce Center.
