COMMERCIAL
Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co. grabbed new business after one of Maguire Properties Inc.’s distressed office properties in Irvine was put into receivership.
Hans Mumper, senior vice president and director of management services for the Los Angeles office of Grubb, recently was named receiver for 2600 Michelson, a 310,000-square-foot office near John Wayne Airport that was the former home of the Business Journal.
The 16-story property went into court-overseen receivership on Nov. 17, about a week after Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties was sued for foreclosure by Bank of America Corp., acting on behalf of other lenders who are owed some $95 million for the building.
Receivers are tasked with protecting and maintaining properties, collecting rents and paying bills, as well as overseeing potential sales.
Mumper said in a statement that he planned to launch “an intensive marketing campaign” for the office.
Greg May and Oliver Fleener, two of Grubb’s top local office leasing brokers, will be responsible for leasing the building, which is about 50% full.
Empty space at the building includes suites as small as 1,400 square feet and up to 80,000 square feet, according to the brokers.
The building’s been rumored for several months as a potential acquisition target for Irvine-based drug maker Allergan Inc., which has a sprawling campus next door to the building. Despite the hype, there’s been no sign of an impending sale, sources said.
A foreclosure proceeding for the building had been expected for several months. Maguire Properties said in August that it would default on payments for several local office buildings, including 2600 Michelson.
The landlord missed $1.7 million in payments for the property in August, September and October, Bank of America said in filings with Orange County Superior Court.
Shopoff Buys
A privately traded real estate investment trust overseen by Irvine’s Shopoff Group LP has completed its largest deal to date, for two properties in Riverside County.
Shopoff Properties Trust Inc., which was created to buy raw land for houses, recently closed on a $9.6 million deal for land and lots in parts of Lake Elsinore and Chino Hills.
The property includes 519 entitled home lots and two commercial lots in the Tuscany Valley part of Lake Elsinore, as well as 400 acres of un-entitled and unimproved land in Chino Hills.
“We believe these properties will appreciate in value over the next few years and feel that development activity will be toward the early phases of the next market cycle,” said William Shopoff, chairman and president of the Shopoff trust.
A proposed $4.9 million deal was first struck for part of the Lake Elsinore land about a year ago, but further negotiations more than doubled the size of the deal, according to filings made by the Shopoff trust with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The deal appears to have been made easier due to existing ties between the buyer and seller. The seller is an entity known as TSG Little Valley LP; state records list its headquarters in Irvine. The general partner of the seller, Irvine-based Portfolio Partners Inc.’s Stevan Gromet, also is one of the largest investors in the Shopoff trust.
The trust has made several smaller investments for five other properties in Riverside County and Arizona. It’s also made a small loan for a Nevada property, which currently is in default.
The Shopoff trust began raising money in the summer of 2007. Through September, the offering has generated about $17.6 million in proceeds. The company plans to sell shares through August 2010, filings with the SEC said.
RESIDENTIAL
A new apartment complex being built in Anaheim by Irvine-based Sares-Regis Group is among a dozen complexes recently added to the apartment property management division of the developer.
The company said that it has grown its management division by 12 apartment complexes with 3,649 units. The divi-sion now manages 59 complexes totaling 16,850 apartments in California, Colorado and Arizona.
Three of the new contracts, totaling nearly 1,400 apartments, are complexes built by the developer in Pasadena, Ontario and Anaheim.
The local property is The Crossing in Anaheim, a 312-unit complex that’s been opening in phases since the fall.
Sares-Regis describes the Anaheim complex as a transit-oriented development, due to its location next to the Metrolink Anaheim Canyon Station. The project is on East La Palma Avenue.
