The Lake Forest headquarters of Panasonic Avionics Corp. has traded hands in one of the larger office sales seen this year.
An affiliate of Hartford, Conn.-based Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers last month bought 26200 Enterprise, a two-story building located off Bake Parkway near the Foothill (241) Toll Road for almost $28.3 million. The nearly 145,000-square-foot property went for about $195 per square foot. The deal was brokered by Jeff Cole and Ed Hernandez with the Irvine office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
Johns Creek, Ga.-based Piedmont Office Realty Trust Inc. sold the building. Piedmont, which has owned the property since its 2000 construction, made a nearly $10 million profit on the sale, according to the company.
Piedmont officials said they’re still looking at Orange County as a market for potential acquisitions. The company continues to have office holdings in Irvine and Brea, according to the company’s most recent annual report.
“Orange County and greater Los Angeles is a market of focus and concentration for Piedmont. We will continue to look for favorable investment opportunities there,” said Raymond Owens, Piedmont’s executive vice president.
Panasonic Avionics, an in-flight entertainment system manufacturer and a unit of Secaucus, N.J.-based Panasonic Corp. of North America, renewed its lease for its headquarters in late 2010, along with several other large buildings it leases in the area.
Panasonic Avionics has about 10 more years on its lease at the 26200 Enterprise building and currently pays a little less than $1.9 million in rent annually for the office, according to brokerage data. That works out to a monthly rent of about $1.07 per square foot.
Cornerstone bought the building through a venture with the Teachers Retirement System of Illinois pension fund, according to brokerage data.
Panasonic Avionics leases space in a six-building campus in Lake Forest that totals close to 440,000 square feet.
The six buildings are owned by a handful of different landlords, some of whom are also considering a sale now, according to market watchers.
Apartment Rework
A nearly $1.6 billion deal involving Englewood, Colo.-based national apartment operator Archstone last month has resulted in a near-term tweak to the ownership structure of more than 1,700 apartments in Orange County, and could lead to more changes further down the line.
New York based-Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., one of three owners of Archstone, last month announced a deal to buy the last portion of the apartment company it did not already own.
Lehman said it would pay $1.58 billion for the nearly 27% remaining stake in the apartment company, whose other owners were Bank of America Corp. and Barclays PLC
Lehman first gained control of Archstone in 2007, in a $22 billion deal that coincided with the peak of the last commercial real estate cycle.
Archstone now owns 155 apartment complexes around the country, totaling more than 73,000 units. It has seven complexes that total about 1.5 million square feet in OC, according to brokerage data.
Its largest local complex is believed to be the 549-unit Oakwood Long Beach Marina which is in Seal Beach and totals about 405,000 square feet.
Other area Archstone complexes are in Tustin, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills and Yorba Linda, according to brokerage data.
Lehman—which emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year—was exploring options for the nationwide portfolio following last month’s deal, according to national reports.
Scenarios include taking the privately held company public again, bringing in new investment partners, or perhaps selling off some individual apartment complexes to reduce its debt levels, according to reports. A time frame for any decision hasn’t been announced.
Hanley Sales
Irvine-based retail brokerage Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors has helped close on a pair of Southern California properties totaling more than 190,000 square feet.
Both grocery-store-anchored centers count ties to OC.
The 96,463-square-foot Marketplace at Palm Desert traded hands for about $22.9 million. The seller was Newport Beach-based Rinker Co.; the buyer was an affiliate of Orange-based Investment Concepts Inc.
The 91,631-square-foot Seabridge Marketplace shopping center in Oxnard was sold by an affiliate of Dana Point-based developer Kahl & Goveia Commercial Real Estate. The buyer was San Diego-based Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. Terms of the Oxnard sale were not disclosed.
Hanley Investment Group’s Edward Hanley represented both the buyer and seller in each of the two transactions.
