Irvine Company has sold One America Plaza, San Diego’s tallest office tower, in a $120 million deal that concludes the Newport Beach firm’s rapid exit from downtown San Diego, a now-struggling office market where it had for two decades been the dominant landlord.
Sacramento’s Saca Development bought the 500-foot-tall, 34-story office—long considered the premier skyscraper in the city—in a late-October deal that valued the 570,000-square-foot building at around $210 per square foot.
Irvine Co. paid close to $300 million for the office in 2006.
It’s the sixth reported office tower sale for Irvine Co. in downtown San Diego since late 2024.
Historically, large commercial property sales for privately-held Irvine Co.—which prides itself on long-term ownership—have been a rarity, making its recent flurry of sales activity in downtown San Diego an anomaly.
Re-Focus Elsewhere
Irvine Co., California’s largest owner of office buildings with an in-state portfolio of nearly 580 buildings topping 54 million square feet, retains a large office presence elsewhere in San Diego County, with a mix of low-rise offices, mid-rise offices and towers in suburban markets north of the downtown area.
Officials for the landlord stress that they are investing heavily in those areas and plan to remain long-term owners.
“As the largest landlord in San Diego, the greater San Diego metropolitan area will continue to be a key driver of Irvine Co.’s ongoing success, as La Jolla UTC (University Town Center) is San Diego’s premier business district,” Irvine Co. President of Office Properties Roger DeWames said in September, adding that Irvine Co.’s San Diego portfolio was nearly 90% leased.
35% Vacancy Rate
One American Plaza counted a vacancy rate of 13% at the time of its sale, according to Saca Development officials.
That stands in stark contrast to other offices in downtown San Diego, a market that has been in free-fall since the pandemic, battered by economic and social issues echoing those seen in other key West Coast downtown office markets like San Francisco, Portland and parts of Los Angeles. It has, by far, the highest office vacancy rate of any market in San Diego County.
Downtown San Diego counts 16.3 million square feet of office space; it currently sports a vacancy rate topping 35% and has an average asking rental rate of $2.47 per square foot, according to the latest quarterly data from commercial brokerage Kidder Mathews.
San Diego County, in total, counts an office market topping 108 million square feet.
Vacancy rates for the county currently stand at 18.2%, with average asking rents of $3.08 per square foot.
Higher-end submarkets in the county that Irvine Co. still operates in, like La Jolla UTC, which are heavy with pharma and tech tenants and are in proximity to the University of San Diego, count monthly rental rates approaching $4 per foot, and have vacancy rates closer to 12%, according to Kidder Mathews data.
Quick Retreat
Until late last year, Irvine Co. owned six of the 10 most prominent office towers in downtown San Diego.
Most were bought in a series of acquisitions spanning from 2003 to 2006, with the investor paying close to $1 billion in total.
Its subsequent sales of the properties in 2024 and 2025 brought in less than $400 million, according to local reports.
One America Plaza was the priciest of the Irvine Co. sales and marked the second deal it made with Saca Development, following the $43.9 million sale of the 20-story 101 West Broadway tower in late 2024.
“We’re really excited about the opportunity here. I just feel like this is a generational asset,” said Saca’s Payton Saca. “One America Plaza has a reputation of being one of the most premier assets in downtown San Diego. We love the market and know it really well.”
“Ideally, we can improve these assets and bring people back downtown and get people really excited,” Saca said. n
Ray Huard, reporter with sister publication San Diego Business Journal, contributed to this report.
