Aliso Viejo-based CT Realty Investors has a big industrial development under way in Riverside County, and it also is planning to remodel another sizable industrial building it just bought in the Irvine Spectrum.
The real estate investor and developer said earlier this month that it had broken ground on a 600,000-square-foot distribution building in Beaumont for Icon Health & Fitness Inc., the Logan, Utah-based owner of NordicTrack, Weider and other fitness brands.
Icon signed an eight-year lease for the property in a transaction valued at more than $16 million.
The fitness company currently operates a 400,000-square-foot distribution facility in Redlands, along with another site in Georgia. The new facility in Beaumont will bring about 140 jobs to the area.
The building will be on 30 acres of land that CT Realty owns near the intersection of the Moreno Valley (60) Freeway and Redlands (10) Freeway.
CT Realty bought the Beaumont land, and two existing industrial buildings totaling about 572,000 square feet, in 2011. Brokerage data placed the value of that transaction at about $20 million.
Brea-based KPRS Construction Services Inc., which built the two existing buildings at the Beaumont site, is acting as the general contractor for the Icon building, with Bank of America participating as construction lender.
CT Realty will serve as developer and construction manager of the project, which should be finished by October.
Closer to home, CT Realty recently closed on the purchase of 6 Whatney, a 125,000-square-foot building in the Irvine Spectrum that had been the longtime home to the local operations of Japan-based NGK Spark Plug Co.
The company paid NGK about $9.2 million for the property—or about $74 per square foot—according to the Irvine office of Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services, whose brokers worked on the sale.
NGK Spark Plug, which moved its production of spark plugs from Irvine to West Virginia, recently relocated its West Coast distribution operations to a smaller location in the Spectrum, at 68 Fairbanks.
CT Realty is planning a major remodel and upgrade to the 6 Whatney building, and it is expected to relist the building for sale once the improvements are made to the building, which is expected to generate interest as a potential corporate headquarters.
Costa Mesa Remodel
Lake Forest-based Advanced Real Estate Services Inc. has snapped up a pair of apartment properties in Costa Mesa that total 158 rental units.
The company bought a 98-unit complex along East 18th Street, last known as West Bay 161 East 18th Street Apartment Homes, as well as a 60-unit complex at 2000 Parsons St., which had been called WestBay Parsons Street.
Ares said the two properties—each located a few blocks from The Triangle shopping center—would be remodeled and renamed Eastside Apartments and The Parsons Apartments, respectively.
The complexes were bought from a Los Angeles-based partnership for an undisclosed price. Ares said it raised $19 million of private equity for the transaction; $6 million is earmarked for renovation of the properties.
The renovations will be handled by R3 Construction, which is Ares’ in-house construction company.
The two properties last traded hands in 2010, as part of a larger, eight-building apartment sale in Costa Mesa that totaled 295 units and sold for a combined $47 million, according to CoStar Group Inc. data.
“Costa Mesa is home to the headquarters of some of the largest names in the action- sports industry such as Volcom and Hurley,” said Paul Julian, director at Ares. “Our plan is to upgrade the properties to attract the young professionals who work in the area. We plan to capitalize on the properties’ mid-century architecture to create an environment that feels like a boutique hotel.”
Ares owns and manages more than 6,000 apartments in Southern California. Julian said Ares is looking for other opportunities similar in nature to the latest Costa Mesa purchases, in markets including downtown L.A., Hollywood, West L.A., coastal Orange County and parts of San Diego.
“We are targeting the renters who aren’t satisfied living in an apartment that looks like all of the others on the street,” Julian said.
