Newport Beach-based chipmaker Mindspeed Technologies Inc.’s name shouldn’t be coming up any time soon as a relocation candidate.
The maker of chips for routers, switches and other networking gear recently renewed and extended its lease for its headquarters at 4000 MacArthur Blvd. in one of the larger office leases seen for an area technology company of late. The lease with New York-based landlord Emmes Group of Cos. is for 88,160 square feet and runs through the end of 2019, according to regulatory filings.
Financial terms weren’t immediately disclosed.
The new deal represents another downsizing in space for Mindspeed. It had been occupying about 97,000 square feet at the complex, which includes a pair of 10-story buildings near MacArthur Boulevard and Jamboree Road near John Wayne Airport. Mindspeed at one time had as much as 107,000 square feet at the complex, which has served as the company’s headquarters since its inception.
The complex also serves as the home for chipmaker Conexant Systems Inc., which spun off Mindspeed in 2003.
The latest Mindspeed deal was inked in April. It takes one of the larger Orange County technology companies rumored to be a candidate for relocation off the market—for the second time in recent years.
Mindspeed was rumored to eyeing a move to Aliso Viejo in 2009, but the following year it announced a short-term renewal deal with 4000 MacArthur’s landlord at the time, New York-based Tishman Speyer Properties LP.
That deal would have expired at the end of 2012 but provided Mindspeed the option to extend its lease an additional five years. The company had been rumored to be eyeing other area locations before again opting to stay put.
Emmes, which also owns the up-for-sale Michelson tower at the Park Place complex in Irvine, took over ownership of the two-building 4000 MacArthur office complex last year.
The new lease between Emmes and Mindspeed provides the company a new, four-year extension option beyond 2019.
The new deal also provides seven months of rent abatement that’s valued at about $1.2 million. The lease also calls for Emmes to pay Mindspeed about $4.5 million for tenant improvements, alterations to its space, or as a payment against rent due, according to regulatory filings.
Pricey Land
Irvine Company’s initial investment for a new 980-unit apartment complex it is building at the Park Place mixed-use campus in Irvine appears to be well above our previously reported estimates.
Early-stage work is in full force along Michelson Avenue, where Newport Beach-based Irvine Co. is turning a former parking lot near the headquarters of Western Digital Corp. into an upscale apartment complex.
The roughly 14-acre site, which runs along the San Diego (I-405) Freeway, was bought late last year by Irvine Co. in one of the larger land deals of 2011. It’s one of several large apartment projects that Irvine Co.—–which owns some 44,000 apartments in California—is building in Orange County.
The Business Journal broke the news of last year’s land sale, and cited sources estimating that Irvine Co. paid LBA Realty, the Irvine-based owner of much of the Park Place campus, close to $3.3 million per acre for the land—on par with other area land deals of late. That would have put an estimated total purchase price close to $46 million.
Brokerage data from CoStar Group Inc. show that estimate to be well off the mark. The market tracker’s information shows Irvine Co. paying an eye-opening $101.4 million for the land. That works out to a price of about $7.2 million per acre, or roughly $103,000 for each apartment planned at the new complex.
A second seller in the transaction and a premium paid for land already entitled for housing appear to be the main reasons for the higher price tag. Canadian condominium developer Bosa Development Corp. is also listed by CoStar as a seller in the deal.
Bosa, which built the two-building Marquee at Park Place condo towers during the last housing boom, also held entitlements for additional high-rise towers for the land, where Irvine Co. is building Park Place Michelson Apartments.
A portion of the $101.4 million purchase price went toward acquiring Bosa’s entitlement rights, according to sources.
