One of the larger multi-tenant office buildings in the heart of the Irvine Spectrum not owned by Irvine Co. now has a medical focus.
Walnut Creek-based Meridian, a medical-focused real estate developer and owner with significant Newport Beach operations, said this month that it had completed the conversion of a 114,200-square-foot, four-story office building at 114 Pacifica Court into a 100% medical office building.
The property is now known as Pacifica Medical Plaza.
The developer bought the building in September 2020, paying $43 million or nearly $390 per square foot for the property, in one of the larger office deals seen in Irvine that year.
The nearly 5-acre property is near the intersection of Barranca Parkway and Irvine Center Drive, and sits alongside the 133 Freeway. The headquarters of medical device maker Masimo Corp. is on the opposite side of the 133.
Parking Structure
The medical office conversion included building a three-level parking structure to increase the parking ratio from four spaces per 1,000 square feet to five. A new entryway and canopy were also built.
Additional work, still ongoing, includes common area improvements that should be completed in a few months.
Snyder Langston and Choate Architects were the design-builders of the parking structure, and Boulder Architects designed the interior improvements.
“This was a very speculative project, but all of the fundamentals were in place to give us confidence in our business plan,” R.J. Sommerdyke, Meridian vice president, acquisitions, said in a statement.
“In addition to being one of the fastest-growing cities in the state, Irvine has one of the tightest medical office markets in Southern California with extremely high barriers to entry.”
The property is “centrally located to what is quickly becoming a medical hub in Orange County,” added Sommerdyke, who noted the building’s proximity to City of Hope’s under-development $1 billion cancer center, and Hoag Hospital’s planned $1 billion expansion of its Irvine hospital campus.
Leasing Success
The building is being marketed for lease by John Wadsworth and Aaron Phillips, in the Irvine office of Colliers.
“We have secured multiple leases to medical tenants and are in the process of negotiating several more leases, which will account for roughly 50% of the building,” Sommerdyke said. “Several tenant build-outs are already underway and first move-ins for medical tenants are expected to occur in April of this year.”
The majority of the remaining space in the building is located on the first and second floors of the builder and can accommodate a tenant looking for 50,000-plus square feet, according to Meridian.
