Irvine Co., the largest office landlord in downtown San Diego, has put one of the six high-rise buildings it owns in the area up for sale.
Symphony Towers, a 34-story office tower in downtown San Diego that opened in 1989, is being marketed for sale, the Newport Beach-based real estate owner told the Business Journal last week.
The asking price for Symphony Towers hasn’t been disclosed. Irvine Co. paid a reported $134 million for the roughly 530,000-square-foot office in 2003. That deal worked out to a price of about $253 per square foot.
Pre-pandemic, office towers in the city’s center likely would have fetched a price in excess of $400 per square foot, but that market, like other downtown areas across California, has seen its share of issues in the past few years.
Downtown has the highest office vacancy rate of any market in San Diego County, according to data from commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield—27.1% for the first quarter of 2024.
The countywide office vacancy for the first quarter was 14.2%.
San Diego’s office market runs some 71 million square feet, according to C&W data. By comparison, Orange County’s office market runs closer to 92 million square feet and ended the quarter with a vacancy rate around 19.7%, according to the brokerage.
Key Market
Irvine Co. is the largest office owner in California, with a companywide portfolio topping 54 million square feet.
The company in February reported that 91% of its portfolio was leased.
Outside Orange County, San Diego is Irvine Co.’s largest office market. Besides its collection of skyscrapers in downtown San Diego, it counts extensive holdings in the Del Mar Heights, La Jolla, Mission Valley and Sorrento Mesa areas of the county. Most of its non-downtown offices are low-rise and mid-rise buildings.
“We are actively planning to reinvest in the greater San Diego metropolitan area and anticipate growth for the foreseeable future,” Irvine Co. said in a statement.
The sale is being handled by Eastdil Secured, a New York-based subsidiary of Wells Fargo.
“Symphony Towers is one of the most notable properties in the (San Diego) financial district and we anticipate significant interest in this rare opportunity to acquire a signature Class A building in downtown San Diego,” Eastdil said in a statement.
Symphony Towers is the home of the San Diego Symphony, from which it takes its name, and the University Club, a private dining and social organization.
Rents at the tower currently run around $3.15 per square foot on a monthly basis, according to the website for Irvine Co.’s office division.
The tower was built by Douglas Wilson Cos. in partnership with Charlton Raynd Ventures.
Rare Sale
The sale of Symphony Towers would be unusual for Irvine Co., which typically buys real estate—its extensive portfolio also includes retail, apartments, resorts and other property—and holds it as a long-term investment.
Irvine Co.’s biggest reported sale in recent years was in 2022, when it got $330 million for 1221 Ocean Avenue, a 120-unit, ultra-luxury apartment complex in Santa Monica.
Closer to home, in 2022 Irvine Co. entered into a long-term land lease agreement for the shuttered Fashion Island Hotel in Newport Beach, for $143.6 million. The deal worked out to a price of about $487,000 per room for the 295-room property, which now operates as Pendry Newport Beach. It followed that up with the $135 million sale of the former Hotel Irvine, which now operates as a Hyatt hotel.
Irvine Co. hasn’t sold any of its larger office holdings in Orange County in years.
Ray Huard is a reporter with sister publication San Diego Business Journal.
