COMMERCIAL
Irell & Manella LLP is keeping its upscale Fashion Island address after signing what appears to be the largest lease for a law firm in Orange County this year.
The law firm, which counts about 55 attorneys locally, is said to have renewed the lease for its offices at 840 Newport Center Drive, according to sources. The firm, which counts about 240 lawyers in total, is based in Century City.
Irell & Manella leases about 56,000 square feet of space at the Newport Center building, which is owned by the California State Teachers’ Retirement System.
The renewal is said to be for the same amount of space for another seven years. The firm declined to comment on the lease.
Irell & Manella ranked No. 12 on the Business Journal’s list of largest area law firms, which came out in January and is ranked by number of local lawyers. They’re the third-largest law firm in the offices around Fashion Island, behind No. 3 Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth and No. 6 O’Melveny & Meyers LLP.
At the start of the decade, three of the five largest law firms here were based in Newport Center. In the most notable relocation, Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP, OC’s largest law firm, moved to its current headquarters in Irvine in 2002.
Irell & Manella’s lease renewal appears to clear up any remaining tenant relocation issues for 840 Newport Center Drive for the time being.
In addition to Irell & Manella, the building also serves as the headquarters for Newport Beach bond and mutual fund manager Pacific Investment Management Co.
Pimco was eyed earlier this year by local real estate officials as a potential bidder and tenant at the former Downey Financial Corp. headquarters, which was put up for sale a few months ago in Newport Beach and is still largely empty.
That rumored deal—which Pimco officials denied—was off the mark. Salt Lake City businessman Khosrow Semnani’s S.K. Hart Properties LLC announced it closed on the buy of Downey’s Bayview Corporate Center late last month. The 332,000-square-foot property sold for a little more than $50 million.
Irell & Manella was represented in its lease by James Travers, Randall Parker and Steven Card of Travers Realty Corp. The landlord was represented by Los Angeles-based Thomas Properties Group Inc., which manages the property.
RESIDENTIAL
Aliso Viejo-based Shea Properties Inc. is nearing the sale of one of its apartment complexes in Northern California.
A real estate investment trust overseen by Texas-based Behringer Harvard Holdings LLC is under contract to buy the 277-unit Acacia apartment complex in Santa Rosa for $38.7 million, or $139,700 per unit.
Shea Properties built the Sonoma County project in 2003 for a reported $44 million or about $158,000 per unit, according to GlobeSt.com.
The Behringer Harvard Multifamily REIT I Inc. is buying the complex and will take over a $26.9 million first mortgage loan as part of the deal, according to a filing made last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Acacia is the second apartment complex that has ties to an OC developer that was acquired by Behringer Harvard last month.
On Oct. 5, it bought Redwood Lofts, a 140-unit complex in Marina del Rey that it plans to rebrand as Forty55 Lofts. The project was built by Irvine’s Standard Pacific Homes Inc., which initially expected the project to be sold as condos.
Terms of the Redwoods Lofts sale were not disclosed. The project had been marketed for sale last year at about $70 million, or $500,000 per unit. It’s unclear if Standard Pacific still owned the property at the time of last month’s sale.
3000 Sales
3000 the Plaza, a high-end Irvine condo project that was bought out of bankruptcy in September, is seeing progress on sales, according to the project’s new owner.
Scottsdale-based Geoffrey H. Edmunds & Associates Inc. said it has signed contracts for 19 new homes at 3000 the Plaza, on Jamboree Road near Campus Drive, during the past two months.
Edmunds built the 15-story tower, which counts a rooftop pool, last year in a partnership with Phoenix-based developer Opus West Corp. Opus filed for bankruptcy this summer and Edmunds opted to buy out Opus’ stake in the project and try to sell the remaining 55 units at the 105-unit tower on his own.
Of the 19 contracts signed in the past two months, 10 have closed. Prices ranged from $600,000 to as much as $1.5 million for higher-end units.
