MGR Real Estate’s multi-year bet on an improving Orange County office market has passed the $200 million mark, following the purchase of the Orange City Square campus in late December.
Ontario-based MGR, founded by Orange County resident Michael Rademaker, paid $89 million for Orange City Square, a four-building collection of office and retail buildings located off the Garden Grove (22) Freeway, just south of The Outlets at Orange shopping center.
The nearly 393,000-square-foot complex, located on a 14-acre site along The City Drive South, traded hands for about $225 per square foot.
The property includes an 8-story, 187,000-square-foot office at 770 The City Drive S., two mid-rise offices running nearly 98,000 square feet each, and one small retail building.
MGR said the complex “is a rare combination of Class A office space and neighborhood retail, positioned directly adjacent to a major medical and institutional employment hub.”
The offices were reported to be about 84% leased at the time of the sale.
Bellwether Property
Plano, Texas-based Granite Properties was the seller. Granite had owned Orange City Square since 2012.
The December deal, among the larger office complex sales in OC for 2025, marks the fourth time Orange City Square has sold since 2007, according to CoStar records.
Its highest valuation was in 2007, when it sold for nearly $131 million just prior to the Great Recession.
In 2010, it traded for a substantial discount, $63.5 million, after the complex lost several big mortgage companies as tenants amid fallout from the recession.
Granite is reported to have paid a little more than $80 million for the complex, which was built in the late 1980s.
Newmark represented Granite in the just-completed sale. The deal “represents another example of private capital buying Class-A office product at a massive discount to replacement cost and prior peak pricing at a time where the leasing fundamentals have clearly turned,” Newmark Co-Head of U.S. Capital Markets Kevin Shannon said in a statement.
Newmark also worked with MGR to secure $57 million in financing to fund the deal.
Rademaker said his company plans to maintain current operations at the complex, while improving the tenant mix, and making some upgrades.
Trio of Purchases
The Orange office purchase marks MGR’s third big office acquisition in OC in as many years.
In late 2023, it paid $92.5 million for Costa Mesa’s Canvas office campus, home to apparel company 5.11 Tactical and other tenants.
The five-office, 551,000-square-foot campus, located alongside the San Diego (405) Freeway, sold for about $168 per square foot.
In mid-2024, it bought the 2020 Main office tower near John Wayne Airport for nearly $54 million. The 12-story office building, located on the 48-acre Irvine Concourse campus, traded for about $183 per square foot.
“OC is one of the nicest places in the country to live and work,” Rademaker told the Business Journal after the 2020 Main purchase.
“It would be foolish to not take advantage of the properties here when they’re, quite frankly, on sale.”
