Newport Coast executive Joe Wen made another large investment in Orange County, this time buying a two-building office campus near John Wayne Airport for an estimated $106 per square feet.
Formosa Ltd., the Taiwan-based multinational conglomerate owned by Wen, bought 5000 Birch Street, a 310,000-square-foot office campus between Von Karman Avenue and Jamboree Road in Newport Beach, from John Hancock Real Estate, the U.S. arm of Toronto-based insurance Manulife Financial Corp.
The $106-per-square-foot purchase price equates to $32.8 million.
Lincoln Property Co. was hired by Formosa to manage and operate the office campus, which is located within the 160-acre master planned Koll Center Newport and home to tenants like PayAssist Inc., Regus and Lawyers Title.
“Our strategy has always been to invest in well-located, high-potential office assets that provide long-term value to tenants and the local community,” Wen said in a statement.
“5000 Birch Street represents a tremendous opportunity to further strengthen our presence in Orange County. We plan to make strategic upgrades to ensure this property meets the evolving needs of today’s workforce.
Lincoln Property Executive Vice President Parke Miller said his company, working with Wen and Formosa, presented an ideal opportunity to reposition a trophy asset and capitalize on growing demand for high-end office space near John Wayne Airport.
Miller added Lincoln Property plans to reactivate a few on-site amenities, such as adding a new restaurant and adding an event and meeting center.
“This asset checks all the boxes of what modern tenants want nowadays,” Miller told the Business Journal.
Wen also bought Symphony Towers, a 34-floor office building in San Diego, last September, and One Pacific Plaza in Huntington Beach in 2023. Lincoln Property was also hired by Formosa to manage those buildings.
Wen’s company, Formosa Ltd., has five core businesses: venture capital, financial lending, real estate holding and development, property management and forest-products manufacturing and trading.
Wen is also an active philanthropist in Orange County, recently donating $50 million to the University of California, Irvine to create the Joe C. Wen School of Population and Public Health. He also donated $20 million to the school’s Center for Advanced Care and dedicated space at One Pacific Plaza for a local police substation.
CBRE’s Matt Didier and Jessie Tichelaar will manage leasing for 5000 Birch Street. The building has about 60,000 square feet of office space available. One tower stands 10 floors tall with 218,216 square feet, while the other is six stories high with 96,409 square feet.
Wen’s legal counsel throughout the transaction were Chet Cramin and Jacob Bedingfield of MusickPeeler.
Lincoln Property is a private real estate firm that offers services in office, life science, retail, industrial, data center, production studio, healthcare, government, universities and mixed-used properties in the United States and Europe. The company’s leasing and management portfolio includes more than 562 million square feet of commercial space.
Orange County’s Office Market
London-based Savills, in its office market report for the first quarter of 2025, found Orange County’s leasing activity was slow to start the year.
The Savills report specifically showed 1.2 million square feet of leasing activity for the first quarter of 2025, a 7.2% decrease from the previous quarter and a 10.2% drop compared to this time last year.
Smaller lease deals, particularly for spaces of 30,000 square feet or smaller, dominated first quarter leasing activity, per Savills.
Notable office lease signings during the first three months of 2025 were Inari Medical’s 54,406-square-foot new lease at Irvine Spectrum and Ernst & Young’s 36,666-square-foot lease renewal, also in Irvine.
