Newport Beach-based Irvine Company is making more waves in the Silicon Valley office market, with a blockbuster lease for a development reportedly in the works.
The developer, California’s largest office owner, is said to be close to landing Swedish telecom Ericsson Inc. for a nearly 440,000-square-foot lease at an office project it has in the works in Santa Clara.
The deal would be the largest office lease in that region in more than a year that doesn’t involve Google, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, which first reported the rumored lease.
A deal would dwarf any recent office lease signed in Orange County, where Irvine Co. is the area’s dominant landlord.
The largest office lease reported here last year was about 150,000 square feet (see this week’s Special Report, starting on page 17).
Irvine Co. declined to comment on the potential Ericsson lease, which would occupy a large portion of its Santa Clara Square project, which is under development.
The first phase of the 1.2-million-square-foot office development just off Highway 101 is slated to open next year.
Irvine Co. bought the 32-acre site from Equity Office Properties in late 2012 for an undisclosed price.
Older buildings there were demolished to make way for the new offices, one of two Irvine Co. office developments going up in Santa Clara.
The two projects are being designed by New York-based Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the same company designing Irvine Co.’s new office towers in Newport Center.
Irvine Co. also has a 125,000-square-foot shopping center in the works for land it owns next to the Santa Clara Square office project. Whole Foods is said to be a likely anchor for that retail project, according to local reports.
Ericsson occupies about 300,000 square feet of office space in North San Jose but has been ramping up its local presence after making an acquisition in Mountain View last year, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
The company isn’t known to lease space at offices in other Irvine Co. projects in the state.
Stanton Start
MBK Homes in Irvine has opened the largest new-home project in Stanton that the city has seen in nearly three years.
The homebuilder, a unit of Japan-based Mitsui & Co., this month opened Jacaranda, a 45-home urban infill community near Beach Boulevard and Ball Road.
The two-story residences are as large as 1,766 square feet and have starting prices from the high $400,000s. The first move-ins for the project are expected next quarter.
Jacaranda is one of four projects where MBK Homes is selling in Southern California. It also has a 33-home infill project under way in Costa Mesa called Sea House that opened last year just off West 18th Street. The builder sold 95 homes last year, including 15 at Sea House.
Stanton Sale
Briarwood Square, a 194-unit apartment complex in Stanton, has changed hands for $40 million, or roughly $206,000 per unit.
Huntington Beach-based A&M Properties bought the complex at 7545 Katella Ave. near Beach Boulevard.
San Francisco-based Carmel Partners Inc. sold the complex in a deal brokered by JLL multifamily brokers Joe Leon and Javier Rivera. JLL is the new name for what was formerly known as Jones Lang LaSalle.
“It is a well-maintained institutional asset that presents a strong value-add opportunity,” Leon said.
Carmel Partners paid a reported $24.6 million for the complex in 2003. Briarwood Square was 95% occupied at the time of the most recent sale to A&M, which also owns apartments in Anaheim and Huntington Beach.
Vegas Growth
Costa Mesa-based builder Warmington Residential is expanding its land holdings in Las Vegas.
The builder, a unit of the Warmington Group of Cos., partnered with Mountain Real Estate Capital of Charlotte, N.C., to pay about $4 million for a 9.2-acre site in southwest Las Vegas that’s expected to hold 83 homes.
The site is one of two neighborhoods Warmington is expected to open in southwest Las Vegas this year. The company said additional land buys in the area are pending and that they are slated to close in the near future.
