Newport Beach-based Buchanan Street Partners is beginning to get more active on the acquisition front after keeping a relatively low profile the past few years.
The firm, which manages real estate funds for a variety of private and institutional investors, has made a handful of notable buys in Texas the past few months. Buys of late include a quartet of apartment complexes in Austin, Texas, as well as an office complex outside Houston. On a combined basis, those properties are estimated to have a value of close to $100 million.
Buchanan Street also is eyeing deals around Orange County while remaining open to additional opportunities in Texas and Arizona.
“We’re alive and well,” said Chief Executive Robert Brunswick, a Buchanan Street cofounder who also teaches an undergraduate course in commercial real estate at University of California, Irvine.
Buchanan Street—which oversees more than $1 billion in assets—sold a 51% stake of the company to Los Angeles-based investment manager TCW Group Inc. in 2007. The firm currently is looking to raise more money from investors, Brunswick said.
Buchanan Street’s dealings in Texas have some Orange County ties.
It acquired interests in almost 1,200 apartments in Austin this year via a partnership with CWS Apartment Homes LLC, an Austin-based apartment investor that got its start in Huntington Beach in the late 1960s.
The firm’s four latest Austin acquisitions have occupancy rates in the 90% to 95% range but had “some distress” prior to Buchanan Street’s investment, Brunswick said.
Terms of the transactions weren’t disclosed.
Austin apartments sell for $65,000 per unit on average, according to local brokerage data. That would give the four properties a combined estimated value of nearly $80 million.
Buchanan Street apartment’s portfolio now totals about 6,700 units.
Also new to Buchanan Street’s portfolio is the Offices at Kensington, a two-building office property in Sugar Land, Texas, a suburb of Houston. The 170,774-square-foot property was sold a few months ago by an affiliate of Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Advisors.
Terms of the Sugar Land sale weren’t disclosed. KBS paid $28.7 million, or $1,688 per square foot, for the office in early 2007.
The buildings are about 90% occupied.
CT Dealings
Aliso Viejo-based CT Realty Investors has made a name for itself the past few years buying a number of large industrial properties in Southern California with flagging occupancy rates, leasing them up and selling them for strong profits.
Now the real estate investor has added a pair of fully leased buildings to its portfolio.
The company partnered with Glendale-based American Realty Advisors to buy industrial properties in Rancho Dominguez and the City of Industry totaling 234,961 square feet. The two buildings sold for a combined $18.5 million, or about $79 per square foot.
The 101,724-square-foot Rancho Dominguez distribution building is leased to LMD Integrated Logistics. The City of Industry building totals 133,237 square feet of warehouse space and is leased to DC Logistics.
The buildings were purchased from an investment entity of New York-based Blackrock Inc. CT Realty has bought more than 4 million square feet of industrial buildings across Southern California over the past 18 months, according to the company.
Tustin Sale
A three-building, bank-owned office complex along Red Hill Avenue in Tustin had been bought by a private investor.
An undisclosed buyer paid $15.5 million for the buildings, at 15621, 15641 and 15661 Red Hill Ave., located near the city’s Tustin Legacy development project. The 139,558-square-foot complex, which is about 25% leased, sold for about $97 per square foot.
CBRE Group Inc.’s Gary Stache, Pat Scruggs and Anthony DeLorenzo represented the seller, an affiliate of U.S. Bank. The buyer was represented by Kurt Bruggeman and Ryan Swanson of Lee & Associates Irvine.
Fight Night
The SoCal chapter of commercial real estate development group NAIOP is hosting its annual black-tie Night at the Fights this week at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.
The May 17 event—whose theme this year is Rockin’ and Rollin’ in 2012—features one six-round boxing match and a pair of mixed martial arts fights along with dinner, casino games and other entertainment. Tickets are $600 per person.
