The investment group that recently sold the 2050 Main Street office tower in Irvine—Orange County’s priciest office deal of the year—could have a few more deals in the works in 2012.
This month an affiliated of Boston-based AEW Global closed on the purchase of the 2050 Main Street office tower, a 13-story building in the Irvine Concourse office campus near John Wayne Airport.
The building sold for about $108.5 million, or nearly $345 per square foot, according to sources.
The price was well above the $56 million the sellers—a partnership of Newport Beach-based real estate investor Greenlaw Partners and financial backers Westbrook Partners LLC of New York and Chicago-based Walton Street Capital LLC—paid for the building in 2009.
The 2050 Main sale also was likely the most profitable office deal of the year for the sellers.
Greenlaw and its two primary investment partners have invested in about half a dozen local properties over the past few years, including the 2050 Main tower. They’re said to be looking for additional acquisitions in the area.
They also could be looking to make another big sale next year, according to sources.
Among other local properties the group currently owns but could look to sell next year is 4000 Metropolitan Drive, a 183,000-square-foot office located next to The Outlets at Orange shopping center.
Greenlaw and its partners paid a little less than $12 million late last year for the building, which was largely empty at the time. They have subsequently added several large tenants, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which signed a 20-year, 100,000-square-foot lease at the office.
Thanks in large part to the long-term FBI lease, the property, which is getting a new parking structure added to it, could fetch more than $50 million or more if it goes to market in the upcoming months.
The 4000 Metropolitan office is located a few blocks from Garden Grove’s Crystal Cathedral. Greenlaw made an initial $46 million bid on the church campus earlier this year following the ministry’s bankruptcy, with an eye on developing apartments on part of the campus.
A bankruptcy judge ultimately approved a $57.5 million offer for the cathedral and its campus by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County. Greenlaw has filed a claim for a $920,000 break-up fee it says it is entitled to under terms of its offer as the stalking horse bidder for the property.
MIG Buying
Newport Beach-based investor MIG Real Estate LLC has snapped up an apartment complex in Denver, its fourth acquisition in the region since last year.
The company recently closed on the buy of the Rosemont Ridge at Lowry, a 240-unit complex totaling about 242,562 square feet of rentable space.
The property sold for about $29.7 million, or nearly $124,000 per apartment, according to local reports. The seller’s name was not disclosed.
MIG—which also operates under the Merage Investment Group Real Estate name—has bought more than $400 million worth of office, industrial, retail, hotel and apartment properties over the past 30 months.
Its most notable buy in Southern California this year was a four-property office portfolio in San Diego that sold for about $56 million.
Its other Denver-area properties include a Holiday Inn & Suites and a Holiday Inn Express it bought in 2010, and I-225 Plaza, a five-building, mixed-use property in Aurora that it bought earlier this year.
Anaheim Sale
San Diego-based real estate investor Westcore Properties has picked up a fully leased industrial building in Anaheim as part of a two-building buy from an affiliate of Boston-based institutional investor TA Associates.
The Anaheim property is an 119,692-square-foot building located at 5235 E. Hunter Ave.
Tenants include Pretium Packaging LLC, a St. Louis-based container maker, as well as John MacDonald Insurance Service Inc. and Automotive Funding Group.
Terms of the deal, which also included the purchase of a Pomona building, were not disclosed. Records show the Anaheim building last trading hands in 2005, for $9.3 million, or almost $78 per square foot.
Westcore’s most prominent local property is Westcore Executive Center in Mission Viejo, a two-building, 115,517-square-foot project overlooking the San Diego (I-5) Freeway that opened in late 2006.
Westcore bought the Mission Viejo property, built in 2006 under the Mammoth Professional Building name, last year out of bankruptcy.
