Newport Beach-based JH Real Estate Partners Inc. recently added a big local property to its growing retail portfolio, a shopping center across the street from South Coast Plaza.
Bristol Center, is a nearly 166,000-square-foot retail center in Santa Ana that’s home to a CVS, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle and Chick-fil-A, among other tenants.
JH Real Estate paid about $46.5 million, or about $280 per square foot, to Sarofim Realty Advisors, a Dallas-based investment adviser that put the property on the market in October.
The center is on about 14 leased acres near the intersection of Bristol Street and Sunflower Avenue. It’s the real estate investor’s largest retail deal in Orange County. In 2015 it announced a switch in strategy, turning its attention from apartment deals—historically its largest investment category—to retail purchases.
Around that time, it sold a big portfolio of apartments in Los Angeles and San Diego counties and the Inland Empire for a combined $482 million.
The privately-held investor said it’s looking for shopping center deals at $10 million to $75 million.
The Bristol Center sale was brokered by CBRE Group Inc.’s National Retail Partners West brokerage team in Newport Beach.
Pacific Center Add
The Santa Ana office complex that previously held the headquarters of Ingram Micro Inc. has gotten another notable tenant.
Health vocational school CNI Colleges recently signed a 52,095-square-foot lease at Santa Ana’s Pacific Center, a two-building complex just off the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway on Saint Andrew Place.
It will move from a smaller location in Orange to the 1610 Saint Andrew Place, at the complex.
Pacific Center is owned by Costa Mesa-based investment and development company Brookhollow Group, which bought the 392,877-square-foot property in 2015 for a reported $43.9 million.
The sale came around the time Ingram Micro was moving its Orange County operations from Santa Ana to the Park Place complex in Irvine.
Other tenants that have moved into Pacific Center since Ingram’s departure include mortgage firm Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc., a Coppell, Texas-based lender that now operates as Mr. Cooper. It leases about 187,000 square feet there, according to CoStar Group Inc.
Newmark Knight Frank’s Drew Netherton represented CNI in the 130-month lease at Pacific Center, which is valued at $16 million. CBRE’s Ross Bourne represented Brookhollow.
“The new location provides CNI an opportunity to upgrade its facility, as well as occupy a single floor. They also gain abundant free parking and ease of access for their students,” Netherton said.
Lake Forest Land
Walnut-based Shea Homes bought another sizeable chunk of land in Lake Forest for residential development.
The homebuilder recently closed on the purchase of nearly 25 acres at the end of Peachwood road, just off Bake Parkway, where it plans an 85-home single-family development called Teresina.
The land was sold for about $35 million, or $412,000 per home, according to Costar Group records, by a venture that includes Laguna Hills-based Madison Investors, property records show.
The site was cleared of landscaping this past February, and Shea plans to start grading activities shortly, according to city filings.
Shea is working with Horsham, Pa.-based Toll Brothers on the largest residential project now under way in Lake Forest: Baker Ranch, which will hold nearly 2,000 single-family homes and apartments.
Teresina is about half a mile south of Baker Ranch.
Xebec Plans
Seal Beach-based industrial developer Xebec Realty bought 60 acres in Lakeland, Fla., where it’s planning a 533,000-square-foot logistics facility to cost an estimated $39 million.
The site’s about 45 minutes from both Tampa and Orlando.
The plans come a month after Xebec announced its intent to spend $90 million to develop a four-building speculative project near Columbus, Ohio.
