The Irvine Company has landed Orange County’s largest automaker to anchor its new office tower in the Irvine Spectrum.
Mazda North America Operations recently completed a deal to lease five floors at the 200 Spectrum Center tower, a 21-story building that’s opening this year next to the Spectrum shopping center.
The lease runs about 102,000 square feet and will include signage atop the glass-sheathed tower for Mazda, whose North American operations oversee the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through nearly 700 dealers.
The company, a unit of Japan-based Mazda Motor Corp., is OC’s largest automaker by employee count, with more than 500 local workers, according to Business Journal data.
It will relocate employees from 7755 Irvine Center Drive, a five story office next to the Santa Ana (5) freeway.
It occupies all of the space at that 118,000-square-foot office, which is owned by Palo Alto-based Menlo Equities.
Mazda’s lease at that building—one of the largest Spectrum-area office buildings not owned by Irvine Co.—runs through mid-2017, according to brokerage data.
It’s unknown whether the carmaker plans to keep any employees at its existing office following the move to the new headquarters. Mazda also owns other buildings in the area, including its local research and development facilities.
It will begin moving into the 200 Spectrum building early next year, according to sources familiar with the transaction, which was finalized in late December. The deal—one of the largest office leases of the past year—had been rumored to be in the works for several months.
The 200 Spectrum building will open this spring and is Orange County’s tallest office building at 323 feet high. It’s also the largest office building in the Spectrum area at about 426,000 square feet, according to brokerage data.
The building’s architecture stands apart from Irvine Co.’s four other towers in the Spectrum, which are as high as 15 stories and largely clad in travertine stone.
The 200 Spectrum building incorporates “linen-finish stainless steel and high-performance floor-to-ceiling Viracon Glass for energy efficiency and maximum daylighting,” according to marketing materials for the property.
Financial terms of Mazda’s lease haven’t been disclosed. The 200 Spectrum building is believed to have the highest asking rents of any building in the Spectrum, an office market of about 10 million square feet.
Other Irvine Co. towers in the Spectrum list monthly rents as high as $3.50 per square foot.
Irvine Co. has a few other midsized tenants lined up for leases at the new building, which could push the speculative office’s occupancy rates past 50% in the next month or so, according to real estate sources.
That level of leasing is expected to prompt OC’s dominant landlord to proceed with a second tower in the Spectrum this year.
Irvine Co. executives told the Business Journal last year that work could start this year on a sister tower in the 400 block of Spectrum Center Drive, assuming leasing activity at the first tower proved strong.
Irvine Co. is also planning to build smaller buildings in the Spectrum that cater to tenants seeking low-rise space this year.
The offices will be at the company’s Discovery Business Center and Sand Canyon Business Center campuses and total about 529,000 square feet.
The six buildings, which Irvine Co. calls “Next Gen Campus” offices, will include a variety of new design features and workplace amenities that are increasingly in demand by top tenants, the developer said.
