Irvine Co. said on Monday it closed on its acquisition of Chicago’s 48-story Hyatt Center office building.
The Windy City skyscraper is the first office outside California owned by Newport Beach’s Irvine Co., Orange County’s dominant real estate company.
The company, which also owns offices in Los Angeles, San Diego and Silicon Valley, said it will consider buying other commercial properties outside of California “on a very select basis.”
Terms of the transaction, first reported to be in the works last week, were not disclosed. The Wall Street Journal placed a $625 million price on the deal.
The building, on Wacker Drive, has about 1.5 million square feet of office space. It’s home to Hyatt Hotels Corp., law firm Mayer Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP and offices of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The building is about 96% full.
Hyatt Center, a distinctive curved glass and stainless steel tower, was completed in 2005.
The deal involved two of the country’s wealthiest—Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren and Chicago’s storied Pritzker family, which sold the building.
Irvine Co. has paid close to $1 billion on a trio of office acquisitions this month, snapping up a Costa Mesa office complex as well as a property near its Newport Center headquarters.
Three big area real estate investors now can count Chicago skyscrapers among their prize assets.
Newport Beach’s KBS Realty Advisors LLC, whose executive team includes Peter Bren, Donald Bren’s brother, earlier this year bought 300 N. LaSalle Drive for about $655 million. That deal’s likely the priciest office buy an Orange County real estate company’s ever made.
Newport Beach’s Olen Properties Corp. paid $350 million in 2006 for a 40-story skyscraper at One South Dearborn.
