Beer distributor Straub Distributing Co. has filled up a pair of older buildings it opted to vacate a little more than a year ago, when the company signed a big industrial lease for a new headquarters and distribution facility in Anaheim.
Straub is a wholesaler of Anheuser Busch and other beverages in Orange County and parts of the Inland Empire. It made headlines in 2010 with a lease for 281,548 square feet in 4633 E. La Palma Ave. in Anaheim’s industrial corridor. The 15-year lease, made with Sares-Regis Group of Irvine, was valued at $37.5 million, making it one of the priciest industrial deals signed in 2010.
Sares-Regis soon sold the fully occupied Anaheim building to New York-based drug maker Pfizer Inc. for $42 million. That deal, which closed in 2010, also was among the top industrial sales of last year.
Straub, which employs about 330 people locally, previously had its headquarters in Tustin and had occupied about 211,000 square feet in a trio of OC buildings that it owned prior to the Anaheim deal. Two of those buildings now have new occupants.
The company’s 60,000-square-foot former Tustin headquarters, at 2701 Dow Ave., was sold to an owner-user, H2 Chambers LLC, for $7 million, or about $117 per square foot. The buyer is an affiliate of Design West Technologies Inc., a contract manufacturer for the government defense industry and other markets that now uses the building as its headquarters.
The deal was initially structured as a five-year lease option, but the buyer decided to exercise their option early and take advantage of good financing terms according to Paul Julian, a director with Lake Forest-based Advanced Real Estate Services Inc., which represents Straub.
A new tenant is also lined up for another building, Julian said. A 74,000-square-foot industrial property at 3 Holland in the Irvine Spectrum has been leased to Santa Ana-based Kosakura Inc., a manufacturer of retail displays that signed a five-year lease with an option to buy. The property is listed for sale at a price of $8.1 million, according to CoStar Group Inc. data.
The two deals weren’t without their challenges, said Julian, whose company also buys and develops properties, in addition to brokerage.
“[Straub] benefitted greatly from the depressed rent rates and lack of other large users in the market,” he said. “However, the same depressed market definitely provided us a challenge to dispose of their long-owned buildings.”
The company is still looking to lease a third former distribution building, at 410 W. Grove Avenue in Orange. That building runs 78,000 square feet.
Vince Kagawan of Pinnacle Real Estate represented H2 Chambers in the Dow Ave. sale, while Wade Tift of Grubb & Ellis Co. represented Kosakura in its lease.
Aliso Sale
A 32,000-square-foot retail center in Aliso Viejo has been sold out of receivership.
Laguna Niguel-based AV Commons 1 LLC paid a reported $14 million, or about $437 per square foot, for the property, which is located at 26541 Aliso Creek Road, next to the Aliso Town Center shopping center.
A Trader Joe’s market and five other tenants are on the property, which is more than 90% leased, according to CoStar data.
State records show the buyer having ties to San Diego-based real estate developer Buie Stoddard Group, which also counts a Laguna Niguel office.
Buie Stoddard owns more than 30 properties in Southern California and Idaho. Its most prominent local project is the 430,000-square-foot Center at Rancho Niguel, according to the company’s website.
The Aliso Viejo property was built a few years ago by a Dana Point-based entity, and was placed into receivership by American Security Bank.
The center was marketed by receiver Candi Grant, a founding principal of Newport Beach-based Real Estate Receiverships. It counts three buildings and a parcel of adjacent land, which was closed in a separate escrow concurrently as the retail center sale. That will allow the buyer to begin planning for additional development, according to Grant.
Paul Bitonti and Brenton Baskin, brokers with the Newport Beach office of Marcus & Millchap Real Estate Investment Services, represented the buyers in the sale.
