Fullerton’s Eastside Christian Church has closed on a deal to buy a pair of Anaheim buildings that will serve as the growing congregation’s new campus.
The church paid $20 million for the 20-acre property, a onetime site of Boeing Co.’s sprawling operations in the city, according to brokers with the Anaheim office of Grubb & Ellis Co. who worked on the deal.
The sale, first reported by the Business Journal to be in the works late last year, is one of the larger commercial real estate deals in North Orange County to close this year.
The transaction’s completion comes a few months after Eastside announced a deal to sell its existing 8.2-acre campus in to another Fullerton church, the Dong Shin Presbyterian Church, for $16.6 million.
The Anaheim property Eastside’s buying includes two buildings: a two-story, 200,000-square-foot industrial building at 3330 E. Miraloma Ave. and a six-story, 200,000-square-foot office building at 3370 E. Miraloma.
The buildings and land are set to see extensive remodeling to hold a campus for Eastside.
The church has told members that it eventually expects to spend an additional $20 million to $25 million upgrading the Anaheim property, which has been vacant since mid-2008.
The buildings sold at a reported price of $50 per square foot—on the low end for area industrial and office buildings of late.
The property, part of the Anaheim Concourse business park, previously had a $38 million, or $95 per square foot, asking price, according to brokerage data.
The Anaheim deal is expected to be financed by Eastside through the sale of the existing campus, leasing of excess space at the site and fundraising.
The sale was a chance for Eastside “to relocate within close proximity to their Fullerton location and should fulfill the immediate and long-term needs of its congregation,” said Jim McFadden, executive vice president, and co-managing director of Grubb & Ellis’ Orange County brokerage operations.
“Long Process”
McFadden worked with Ryan Gallagher of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP’s Irvine office to represent Eastside in the deal, which closed escrow earlier this month.
McFadden called the deal one of the harder, but most satisfying, transactions of his career. “It was a long process,” he said.
About 10 sites within a five-mile radius of East-side’s current campus were identified as potential sites for relocation, including the former Fullerton headquarters of Brea-based medical testing company Beckman Coulter Inc.
The Anaheim site Eastside eventually selected is expected to include a church, a chapel, offices, shops, restaurants, and education uses, according to city documents.
Anaheim’s Planning Commission approved the plans for the campus about two months ago.
The two-story building is slated to be converted into space for a church that would hold upward of 3,000 people, as well as related uses such as Sunday school classrooms, meeting rooms and church offices.
Part of the building’s second floor would be removed to accommodate the proposed church’s sanctuary, bringing down its total size to about 170,000 square feet, according to plans filed with the city.
Chapel, Offices
The six-story building is expected to be reconfigured to include a chapel, lecture hall for college and adult education, a fitness center and shops.
It’s also expected to hold more than 100,000 square feet of offices for the church as well as other users, including as much as 62,000 square feet for medical and dental tenants.
The property’s grounds also would be remodeled to include a plaza, fountains and an 89-foot tall cross.
Initial construction and redevelopment work should cost close to $15 million, according to McFadden.
The church sees close to 4,300 worshippers every weekend. Plans are to move to the new site in 2012.
The Fullerton site Eastside is leaving shouldn’t be vacant long. Dong Shin Pres-byterian, the buyer of the 8.2-acre campus next to California State University Fullerton, is a Korean-American church based in the city and counts about 1,000 members.
Eastside purchased the Anaheim buildings from Sacramento-based Panattoni Develop-ment Co., which acquired the site from Boeing in 2007 as part of a larger portfolio deal.
Ricky Warner and Mark Friend of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s Anaheim office represented Panattoni in the transaction.
The deal comes as Panattoni, one of the larger industrial developers in California, is moving ahead with plans to build up to eight buildings that could total up to 900,000 square feet in the vicinity of the new Eastside campus.
New Industrial
It would be the largest industrial development seen in Orange County since the last real estate boom, and the first large-scale speculative development in Anaheim in nearly 10 years.
The developer is looking to sell or lease the buildings, the first of which are expected to break ground later this year.
With the development plans and the Eastside deal, the bulk of the 60 acres of land and buildings that Panattoni bought from Boeing now is spoken for, officials for the developer said last month.
