The largest office building in San Clemente has been sold to a Los Angeles-based value-add investor.
Abington Emerson Investments this month closed on the purchase of 1311 Calle Batido, an 85,316-square-foot property that’s part of the 100-acre Talega Business Park in San Clemente.
The building is on 7.5 acres about 2 miles inland from the San Diego (I-5) Freeway, just off Avenida Pico.
The two-story office, built in 2002, was sold for about $14.2 million, or $166 per square foot, by a venture headed by Glendale-based American Realty Advisors, which had owned it for about a decade.
The venture paid a reported $23.3 million for it in 2007, according to property records. It was at the time fully leased to Quest Diagnostics Inc. of Madison, N.J., the country’s largest provider of medical testing services.
Quest downsized its operations at the building and now occupies about 20,000 square feet there.
Saddleback Church moved to the site about three years ago and occupies another 40,000 square feet for its services in San Clemente, putting the property’s occupancy at nearly 70% at the time of this month’s sale.
Another medical-related tenant is nearing a deal to take additional space there, according to brokers.
Other medical tenants in the vicinity include ICU Medical and Laguna Hills-based Glaukos Corp., a maker of glaucoma treatment devices that plans to move its headquarters to a nearby building in San Clemente this year.
Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Jeff Cole, Ed Hernandez and John Gallivan represented the sellers, and CBRE Group Inc.’s Jeff Carr represented Abington Emerson.
The purchase is the largest office deal in Orange County for Abington Emerson, which seeks value-added real estate deals for its own investments, according to its website. The company also has a direct-lending business for small and midsized businesses.
Rents at the San Clemente building are 17% below market rent levels for the area, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s marketing documents for the property.
Brandywine Going Big
Irvine-based Brandywine Homes is moving ahead on a 15-home project in Yorba Linda that will have among its largest and most expensive homes to date.
The homebuilder, which focuses on urban infill projects in Southern California that tend to be more affordable than most builders’ local offerings, said this month that it broke ground on Newbury, a 8.4-acre community a few blocks west of Imperial Highway on Highland Avenue.
Grading is scheduled to begin in May, and a grand opening is planned for the first quarter of next year, according to the builder.
The five- and six-bedroom, six-bathroom estate homes on the property will range from 4,761 square feet to 5,046 square feet and will be built on the site of an older single-family home, the company said.
Brandywine Homes closed on the land late last year, paying a family trust about $4.2 million, or $501,000 per acre, according to CoStar Group Inc. estimates.
Brandywine got a $17.3 million loan from Wells Fargo Bank to finance the project, according to property records.
Prices will start at close to $2 million for the two-story homes, which will include attached four-car garages and yards large enough for swimming pools.
Most of Brandywine’s portfolio includes homes under 2,000 square feet and under the $1 million mark. Its next largest project by square footage, a 20-home development in Anaheim called Lake House, has homes topping out at 2,755 square feet.
Its last local development to feature homes approaching $2 million was in Pasadena, where homes sold for more than $1.6 million.
Newbury is Brandywine’s third development in Yorba Linda. It’s currently selling homes at Covington, a 51-home project on 5.1 acres near Yorba Linda Boulevard and Blair Street across from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. Homes there start at a little more than $600,000.
It also has a 28-home project called Provence scheduled to open for sale next month, also near the Nixon Library. That 3.2-acre project will feature three- and four-bedroom homes. Pricing hasn’t been announced.
