COMMERCIAL
An Anaheim distribution building on Miraloma Avenue that had been on the market since 2008 has traded hands for $13 million—one of the larger industrial sales seen here this year.
Chun Lun Ko, owner of Anaheim-based tile company Best Cheer Stone Inc., recently acquired a 163,139-square-foot building at 3190 E. Miraloma Av-enue. The building, previously used by TDK Electronics Corp. as a distri-bution center, was sold by Minnesota’s Imation Corp.
The sales price works out to about $80 per square foot. Best Cheer Stone is renovating the property—built in 1976—and plans to move its headquarters from the tile mile area of Anaheim along State College Boulevard to the 11-acre site upon completion.
Imation acquired a TDK unit in 2007 and opted to close the distribution center and move operations out of the state. It originally listed the building for sale at a price of $20.7 million.
In addition to the availability of Small Business Administration financing, the sale closed now in part “because buyer and seller expectations are now much more closely aligned than we saw in the past couple of years,” said Sean Ward of the Anaheim office of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., who along with Ben Seybold represented the seller in the deal.
“Some buyers now feel that we are at, or close to, the bottom of the market,” Ward said.
Schriber Retires
Costa Mesa-based retail developer Donahue Schriber is seeing a change in its executive management team after the retirement of one of the company’s cofounders.
Thomas Schriber, the company’s cofounder and chairman, has re-tired. He’s turning over his role to President and Chief Executive Patrick Donahue, who has been with the company more than 30 years.
Schriber is staying on as chairman emeritus and said he will remain an active board member. Donahue is becoming chairman and will continue to serve as chief executive, a role he’s had since 2005.
As part of the transition, Lawrence Casey takes on Donahue’s role of president, adding to his duties as chief operating officer. Casey counts 33 years in real estate and investment and has managed more than $4.5 billion of assets nationally. He joined Donahue Schriber in 2000 as its chief financial officer.
Schriber has spent 41 years at Donahue Schriber, the retail real estate firm he founded with his late partner, Daniel Donahue, Patrick’s brother.
“Dan and I always believed in looking ahead and planning for the company’s future,” Schriber said in a statement. “My retirement is part of a succession plan created by Dan and myself to utilize the pool of talented individuals who have demonstrated the ability to lead Donahue Schriber.”
The company owns and operates 84 shopping centers representing more than 12 million square feet in California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon. Local properties include Bristol Village Plaza in Costa Mesa and Santa Ana’s South Coast Marketplace.
Construction Changes
Construction company Cavico Corp. is taking another look at its financing strategy.
In March, I wrote about Cavico, a Vietnamese construction company whose executive offices are in Huntington Beach. The company, whose projects include a 27-story office tower it’s building in Hanoi, was looking to raise $20 million from investors through a registration statement.
That plan appears to be on hiatus. Last week, the company withdrew its registration statement from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Cavico elected to withdraw the registration statement “after reviewing its current capital requirements,” the company said in a letter to the SEC. No other details were provided.
Cavico moved from the Bulletin Board stock exchange to Nasdaq late last year, and counts a recent market value of about $10 million. It earned $14.6 million for the quarter ended March 31, up 23% from a year earlier.
Aspen Land Sale
Newport Beach’s Centurion Partners LLC has opted to sell off a high-profile land site in Aspen, Colo., where an upscale hotel had been proposed.
Centurion subsidiary Aspen Land Fund II LLC recently sold a 2.4-acre land site to Alcion Ventures, a Boston-based private equity firm, according to the Aspen Times.
The sales price was reported to be $15 million, below the $22.5 million loan Centurion—a frequent developer in Colorado—previously had tied to the property, which had gone through some legal wrangling the past few months.
Aspen Land Fund filed for bankruptcy in September in what the company’s lawyers described as a defensive move made to save the developer’s Lodge at Aspen Mountain project. Centurion, which had owned the site since 2002, had proposed building a 75-room hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain.
The Aspen Land subsidiary reportedly came out of bankruptcy in February in an effort to raise capital and renegotiate with its lenders to keep the promissory note.
The new owners of the land haven’t disclosed their plans for development at the site, according to the local reports.
