In 2018, Shopoff Realty Investments was part of a group that sold Corona del Mar’s Bayside Park office complex for about $23.2 million. The two-building waterfront office complex, running about 35,000 square feet and directly across the harbor from Balboa Island, sold for nearly $660 per square foot, a deal that ranks high among area office sales on an PSF basis.
Bayside Park’s new owners, Redwood West, revamped the property after the sale and recently grabbed a notable tech tenant, healthcare software firm Tebra Technologies Inc., which just landed funding that places the valuation of the firm, previously known locally as Kareo, in unicorn status.
Tebra CEO and co-founder Dan Rodrigues said he had a much larger software company with local waterfront offices in mind when finding a new headquarters.
“We were inspired by SAP’s HanaHaus in Newport Beach,” Rodrigues said, speaking of the creative office/local SAP hub that opened near Lido Marina Village a few years ago. “We found a (similar) building on Newport Harbor.”
While many of Tebra’s employees are still working remotely, the new hub is expected to act as “a destination office,” Rodrigues tells our Peter J. Brennan.
“We’re creating the office of the future that will attract employees to come back to the office.”
For more on the recent gains for Rodrigues’ Tebra and Shopoff Realty’s Bill Shopoff, see our two front-page stories. For an update on occasional area resident, HanaHaus visitor and SAP founder Hasso Plattner, see next week’s print edition, which includes our annual OC’s Wealthiest listing.
LoanDepot founder and Executive Chairman Anthony Hsieh made the Business Journal’s OC’s Wealthiest listing last year with a fortune we estimated around $2.9 billion. With interest rates rising and the Foothill Ranch’s stock (NYSE: LDI) down more than 80% from a year ago, that estimate’s certainly lower now.
News last week of plans for sweeping cuts at loanDepot (see page 1 for more) mark a notable setback for Hsieh, who has previously successfully sold two prior companies and is known as a hard-driving executive, often starting his day around 4 a.m.
A few days before the July 12 layoff announcement, Hsieh gave hints that the mortgage industry’s turmoil was rocking his company.
“This violent change will shake all of us,” he wrote on his LinkedIn Page, which has 48,000 followers. “There will be casualties, some companies will be victorious during this change, but most will shrink with many not making it to the other side.
“I ask that we do our best to preserve our industry honor, dignity, and remember the importance of our services to this country and our society,” he wrote. “I challenge any industry to adjust to a 50% market loss in less than a year.”
Reports last week said Irvine EV maker Rivian Automotive Inc. (Nasdaq: RIVN) was prepping to make job cuts of its own, possibly as much as 5% of its total employee base, which runs around 14,000.
There are still signs of local growth; real estate sources tell the Business Journal that the company just struck the largest area lease of the year. See next week’s print edition for more.
