Rancho Santa Margarita-based Liquidmetal Technologies Inc., a maker of alloys used in medical devices and consumer electronics, is under contract to buy a larger facility in Lake Forest.
The company said in regulatory filings last month that it had entered into a contract to buy a nearly 41,000-square-foot building at 20321 Valencia Circle. The property is a few blocks from the Foothill Ranch Towne Centre shopping center near the intersection of Lake Forest Drive and Rancho Parkway.
It would be used as a new corporate office and manufacturing facility, according to Liquidmetal, whose market value is about $210 million.
The company’s current headquarters are about five miles from the Lake Forest facility, and take up about 15,000 square feet under a lease agreement scheduled to expire in mid-2023, according to the company’s last annual report.
It hasn’t indicated that it plans to vacate the current headquarters.
The Lake Forest property will cost a little more than $7.8 million, or $191 per square foot, according to regulatory filings. It has 16,000 square feet of office space, according to marketing materials from the Newport Beach office of CBRE Group Inc., whose brokers listed it for sale last summer.
A Laguna Hills-based entity operating as Valencia Circle LLC has owned the building since 2003, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
Liquidmetal said in regulatory filings that it expects the sale to close in mid-February.
The new facility “will allow us to expand our manufacturing capabilities in line with our overall strategy to prepare the company to be the global leader in amorphous alloy production,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Yeung Tak Lugee Li in a statement.
Yeung was named CEO in December, about nine months after joining the board and agreeing to invest up to $63 million in the company.
Axis Adds
The recently renovated Axis creative-office campus next to Angel Stadium in Anaheim has landed another tenant.
Privately held building technologies provider Climatec, which is headquartered in Phoenix, recently signed a lease for 24,708 square feet at the five-building campus just off Orangewood Avenue.
The tenant will relocate its local offices from Irvine to the campus, according to brokers with Cushman & Wakefield Inc. that represent Axis owner Seligman Group, which is based in Southfield, Mich.
Climatec is the second notable tenant to announce a relocation to the Axis campus. The Orange County Register inked a lease in October for nearly 40,000 square feet there for its new headquarters.
Axis encompasses four three-story office buildings and one five-story office totaling about 303,000 square feet of office space. The property’s been getting a makeover during the past year managed for the owner by Irvine-based Pendulum Property Partners.
Upgrades include open floor plans, high exposed ceilings, specially designed roll-up doors, a fitness center, and outdoor meeting areas. There’s also a Karl Strauss Restaurant & Brewery on site just across the street from the baseball stadium.
John Harty and Jason Ward with Cushman & Wakefield’s Irvine office represented the landlord in the transaction with Climatec.
New Home
Charles Schwab has opened the doors of a new branch location in Newport Center.
The San Francisco-based investment services firm last month relocated its Newport Beach office to 16 Corporate Plaza, a roughly 12,000-square-foot building on the southern end of Newport Center and a short walk from Fashion Island shopping center.
The all-marble building is owned by Newport Beach-based Burnham USA Equities Inc., which holds a collection of buildings on the southern side of Newport Center.
Schwab had been at 610 Newport Center, an Irvine Company tower on the opposite side of Newport Center.
It completed extensive improvements to the building, which was built in the 1970s as the headquarters of Home Savings & Loan.
Burnham USA bought the office in 2010 for about $7.4 million, according to CoStar Group records.
