Western Growers Association, a trade association that represents farmers in California, Arizona and Colorado, has sold its Irvine headquarters near John Wayne Airport and relocated to another spot in the city.
The association recently closed on the sale of 17620 Fitch Ave., a two-story office a block from the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway at the intersection of Fitch Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard.
The 35,418-square-foot building had served as the association’s headquarters since it was built in 1980.
Zion Enterprises, a Laguna Niguel-based real estate investor with ties to the area’s restaurant industry, paid $8.2 million, or nearly $232 per square foot.
Gary Allen, senior managing director with the Newport Beach office of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, represented Western Growers in the sale, and Zion Enterprises represented itself.
The deal “allowed Western Growers to unlock significant value to be utilized for the company’s office consolidation project in Irvine,” Allen said.
Western Growers vacated the property following the sale and has consolidated its local operations at 15525 Sand Canyon, one of the buildings at Irvine Company’s Sand Canyon Business Center campus in the Irvine Spectrum area. It’s leasing about 81,000 square feet there, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
Zion Enterprises is headed by Charlie Zhang, founder of restaurant chain Pick Up Stix, which he sold in 2001 for $50 million. The restaurant company, once based in San Clemente, now operates from Minnesota following another sale in 2010.
Zhaing started Zion Enterprises after the company sale, and the real estate investment and development firm has bought more than $200 million worth of commercial and residential properties, according to its website.
He’s also been active in local philanthropic circles, for which the purchase of the Fitch Avenue property should play a part.
Zion Enterprises said it plans to renovate the space, which will be used by local nonprofit organizations, including Pacific Symphony and Orange County Music & Arts.
Tri-Freeway Listing
Tri-Freeway Business Park, a nearly 210,000-square-foot industrial park in Anaheim, is back on the market about two years after last trading hands.
Brokers with the Newport Beach-office of CBRE Group Inc. recently listed for sale the 10-building property near the intersection of the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway and Brookhurst Street.
The multitenant park is on 13.4 acres and has 114 units. It’s about 97% leased, according to marketing materials for the site, which comes with an asking price of a little more than $30.2 million.
Tri-Freeway last sold in 2014 when a venture headed by Irvine-based Greenlaw Partners bought it for a reported $21.4 million. The site was about 90% leased at the time of the 2014 sale, which had a 7.3% capitalization rate.
The in-place cap rate is now about 5.34%, and the property has a replacement cost of $53.7 million, according to CBRE, whose Gary Stache, Anthony DeLorenzo, Doug Mack and Nick Svendsen have the listing.
The park is one of several notable local properties owned by Greenlaw and its partners that are for sale. Others include the 19-story City Plaza tower in Orange and the 18301 Von Karman tower near John Wayne Airport in Irvine.
Lyon Goes Big
William Lyon Homes is opening the first set of homes at the Eastwood Village community in Irvine that aren’t being sold under the Irvine Pacific LP banner.
The Newport Beach-based builder is opening models this summer for a home collection at Eastwood called Calistoga that has the largest models to date at the new development, which opened this year.
Homes there will be as large as 3,380 square feet, with four bedrooms and 4 ½ bathrooms, and are priced in the low $1 millions, according to the builder.
Calistoga is the seventh home collection at Irvine Co.’s Eastwood development at the intersection of Irvine Boulevard and Jeffrey Road. The six other collections that have opened were built under a fee-builder arrangement with Aliso Viejo-based New Home Co. and are sold by Irvine Pacific, Irvine Co.’s in-house building arm.
