Data services company CoreLogic Inc. will move its headquarters from Santa Ana to the Irvine Spectrum next year after signing one of the larger office leases Orange County has seen of late.
CoreLogic last week inked a nearly 170,000-square-foot lease at the Irvine Company’s 40 Pacifica, a 15-story office tower that opened in the Spectrum in 2008.
The company, which employs about 750 people locally, will be taking up about seven-and-a-half floors of the building, which is located alongside the San Diego (405) Freeway.
A bulk of the 40 Pacifica building currently is being leased to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which uses it as a West Coast satellite office.
The FDIC is set to shutter that temporary office early next year.
CoreLogic is expected to move into 40 Pacifica by late summer of 2012, bringing employees from its current Santa Ana headquarters as well as another local site.
The relocation deal is arguably the biggest splash that CoreLogic has made locally since it began life as a stand-alone company in mid-2010.
The company— which provides consumer, financial and property data for real estate, mortgage and other businesses—was spun off last year from Santa Ana-based First American Corp., one of the country’s largest title insurance companies.
The split also created Santa Ana-based title insurer First American Financial Corp.
The deal was intended to free up CoreLogic, which often got overshadowed on Wall Street by First American’s title insurance business.
CoreLogic counts a market value of about $900 million; its shares have taken a hit over the past month after the company lowered its earnings outlook for the remainder of 2011, falling some 40%.
The Spectrum move, the largest relocation of an OC office tenant announced so far this year, should help the company forge its own identity as a separate company.
CoreLogic’s headquarters have remained in Santa Ana since the split, with the company operating out of First American’s distinctive, neoclassical campus, located off the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway.
That campus totals about 490,000 square feet spread among six buildings.
CoreLogic was leasing about 107,000 square feet in two of those Santa Ana offices from First American Financial, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That lease expires at the end of 2012.
CoreLogic last year paid about $4.4 million in rents for the two buildings, according to regulatory filings. The company also owns two offices in San Diego County’s Poway that total about 153,000 square feet.
“I think they were trying to establish a different culture, and a different brand” with the move to the Spectrum, said Steve Case, executive vice president for Irvine Co.’s office properties division.
Terms of the lease weren’t immediately disclosed.
• Headquarters: Santa Ana
• Business: data services for real estate, mortgage and other businesses
• Founded: 2010 (in spinoff from title insurer First American Corp.)
• Ticker symbol: CLGX (NYSE)
• Market value: about $900 million
• Notable: Will move to 170,000 square feet at 40 Pacifica office tower in Irvine Spectrum
At the time of the building’s construction, space at the 314,000-square-foot office were listed at monthly rents as high $4.30 per square foot, but asking rents soon began to drop as the market soured.
As of last week, CoStar Group Inc. listed available space at 40 Pacifica at around $2.35 per square foot.
The Irvine Co.’s lease with CoreLogic takes one of the larger area tenants known to be looking at relocating off the market.
It also removes one of the larger blocks of high-end, empty office space out of play.
The FDIC opened its temporary office at 40 Pacifica in early 2009, signing a 200,000-square-foot lease at the building, which along with 20 Pacifica was one of two Spectrum-area offices towers built by Irvine Co. in the last commercial real estate boom.
The deal was one of the largest office leases seen in Orange County in several years.
The lease was for three years, with two one-year options. The FDIC said earlier this year that the options wouldn’t be exercised, the FDIC said.
The office was used by the FDIC to manage receiverships and to liquidate assets from failed financial institutions, primarily those based in the Western U.S. The space was expected to hold up to 600 employees.
The decision to shutter the office was a reflection of improving health in the banking industry, the FDIC said at the time.
The 40 Pacifica building now has about two floors of available space following the CoreLogic lease, according to Case.
