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OC Insider: Disasterclass Deal

Costa Mesa counts some of the areaโ€™s most recognizable and distinctive buildings, from the 21-story Cรฉsar Pelli-designed Plaza Tower, to Anduril Industriesโ€™ sprawling 640K-sq.-ft. campus along Sunflower Avenue, to the new OC Museum of Art, which opened in 2022 at a cost of over $90M.

But thanks to some eye-raising state budgeting plans, the cityโ€™s most expensive property could end up being a new, two-building government campus running just 54K sq. ft.

Turner Construction Co. and design-build partner DGA last month announced that they were awarded a contract by the state for the construction of a new Emergency Operations Center in Costa Mesa for the Governorโ€™s Office of Emergency Services.

The development will be built on a 15-acre portion of the state-owned Fairview Development Center campus just off Harbor Boulevard. It will include a single-story office building running about 34K sq. ft., set to hold office space, an emergency operations center and training rooms, according to state filings.

Another 20K-sq.-ft. warehouse will also be built, along with a communications tower.
The stated cost of the project is $158M.

That works out to nearly $3,000 PSF for the 2 buildings, an unheard-of price for an OC development. Outside of hospitals and equipment-intensive medical facilities, itโ€™s hard to find a larger-size building costing more than $1,000K PSF to build.

The deal makes the City of Irvineโ€™s $100M+ plans for a new indoor badminton facility, announced last year and set to cost over $880 PSF, a steal in comparison.

The Costa Mesa center โ€œwill play a pivotal role in coordinating emergency management and disaster response at a strategic level, ensuring readiness and resilience in times of crisis,โ€ and will be used for overseeing Southern California, Turner said in a statement.

Itโ€™s unclear why the project is so expensive. The Governorโ€™s Office of Emergency Servicesโ€™ HQ, in the Sacramento area, is 100K sq. ft. and cost just $22M to build, according to the website of that projectโ€™s contractor.

The Costa Mesa projectโ€™s been in the works for a few years. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris in 2023 said she helped secure a provision in the stage budget for the local project.

Californiaโ€™s Office of Emergency Services โ€œprovides disaster planning, readiness and response of state resources for the various emergencies and threats of emergency facing California,โ€ including earthquakes, floods and โ€œsignificant wildfires.โ€

Given the stateโ€™s readiness and response in LA last week, perhaps that money would be better spent on firefighters and firefighting equipment.

Existing office properties can be bought for significantly lower figures. The latest example is the $42M sale of theย 2600 Michelsonย tower nearย John Wayne Airport.

The 17-story buildingโ€™s just-completed trade works out to about $135 PSF. At its peak pricing, the one-time home of the Business Journal was valued at over $430 PSF. Amid the fallout from the Great Recession, it sold for $207 PSF. See next weekโ€™s print edition for more.

That was fast: a month ago, we reported on the $60M Series E fund raise for Irvineโ€™s Beta Bionics, the maker of a โ€˜bionic pancreas.โ€™

Last week, the device maker filed for an IPO, marking the first of 2025 for an OC company. See next weekโ€™s edition for more details.

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Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung joined the Orange County Business Journal in 2021 as their Marketing Creative Director. In her role she creates all visual content as it relates to the marketing needs for the sales and events teams. Her responsibilities include the creation of marketing materials for six annual corporate events, weekly print advertisements, sales flyers in correspondence to the editorial calendar, social media graphics, PowerPoint presentation decks, e-blasts, and maintains the online presence for Orange County Business Journalโ€™s corporate events.
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