Boeing Co.’s base in the master-planned Douglas Park near the Long Beach airport has long represented a source of development opportunity for Orange County investors.
There appears to be potential for additional development, following a new listing at the massive business park by the aerospace giant.
Reports indicate the company is looking to sell a 78-acre parcel of land just north of the airport. Boeing must first approach the city of Long Beach for right of first refusal of the eight-parcel site, and then secure approvals in order to pursue other buyers.
A deal could garner north of $150 million, based on similar deals in recent years.
Sares Regis Work
Several Orange County firms already have significant stakes in the area through former deals with Boeing.
The development wave kicked off in 2011 when Boeing looked to offload nearly 220 acres at Douglas Park.
Newport Beach-based Sares Regis Group has taken the lead for much of the development, buying most of the land from Boeing in a series of deals in 2011 and 2012.
Sares Regis has in turn sold some newly built properties at the business park to owner-users; leased other properties; and sold some land to other developers.
In 2013, it got Mercedes-Benz USA to lease a 1.1-million-square-foot former Boeing 717 manufacturing facility; the carmaker uses the hangar as its Western region prep and distribution center.
The OC developer is also working on developments for land it bought from Boeing in Huntington Beach. The projects could add more than 1 million square feet of new industrial product to the city.
Other OC Ties
The most recent deal between Boeing and an OC investor was last June, when the company struck a sale with Goodman North America, the Irvine-based affiliate of Australia’s Goodman Group.
It paid more than $200 million for a 93-acre former C-17 manufacturing facility, which Goodman is now redeveloping into a mixed-use development called Goodman Commerce Center Long Beach.
Other new developments for Douglas Park include Long Beach Exchange, a retail and lifestyle shopping center built by Newport Beach-based Burnham Ward Properties.
The company, one of OC’s top retail developers, opened the 266,000-square-foot center, also known as LBX, in 2018.
Meanwhile, Santa Ana-based Nexus Cos. has led hotel development in the area, opening three hotels there in the past decade.
The first, a 159-room Courtyard by Marriott Long Beach Airport, opened in 2013; a dual-hotel project opened in 2017, including a Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites hotel totaling 241 rooms.
