There’s change in the air at the local offices of Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., Orange County’s largest commercial brokerage.
A major remodeling and expansion of the company’s Newport Beach offices along Jamboree Road is finishing up. The renovation will turn its former 35,000-square-foot operations at the Bayview Corporate Center into an 87,249-square-foot space that looks more like a high-end law firm than a brokerage.
The upgraded offices will serve as CB Richard Ellis’ West Coast operations hub, with about 300 employees.
It’s the company’s largest regional office, according to Lewis Horne, executive managing director for the CB Richard Ellis’ operations here and in Los Angeles.
In addition to brokers, the Newport Beach office holds the company’s asset services, project management, debt and equity finance, valuation and global corporate services divisions. There are also offices for some regional and national executives.
One local real estate exec spending more time in the Newport Beach office is Kurt Strasmann, who joined CB Richard Ellis in March.
Until this month, Strasmann was heading up the brokerage’s industrial practice in OC, Los Angeles and the Inland Empire out of the company’s Commerce office. Strasmann will keep that role and add duties co-leading the company’s OC operations, along with senior managing director Jeff Moore, according to Horne.
Moore will continue to oversee the company’s retail operations in Southern California, among other duties.
Strasmann will split his time between Newport Beach and the company’s recently-relocated office in Orange that holds another 50 or so employees, according to Horne.
The brokerage’s Anaheim office last month moved a few miles to the Orange office tower that formerly held the headquarters of Ameriquest Mortgage Co., at 1100 W. Town and Country Road.
While the bulk of the work to CB Richard Ellis’ expanded space is in Newport Beach is complete, the office complex it’s in still is under renovation.
The building’s landlord, Salt Lake City-based SK Hart Management LLC, is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar upgrade to the interior of the Bayview office complex, which also counts Marina del Rey-based Disc Sports and Spine Center, an orthopedic surgery practice, as a new tenant.
The interior work is supposed to be finished in a few months.
Steadfast Buys
An investment fund run by Irvine-based real estate investor Steadfast Cos. has purchased an apartment complex in Kentucky.
The company’s Steadfast Income REIT Inc. said an affiliate paid $10.4 million for Cooper Creek Village, a 123-unit complex in Louisville. The sale works out to a price of roughly $85,000 per apartment.
Steadfast financed the deal with cash and a $6.8 million loan from PNC Bank.
Aparments at Cooper Creek run from 819-square-foot one-bedrooms to 2,394-square-foot three-bedroom units. The complex is about 90% full, with average monthly rents of about $872 per month.
It’s the second Louisville complex that Steadfast Income REIT has bought this year. In May it paid $6.5 million for a 130-unit complex.
Steadfast Income REIT, a nontraded real estate investment trust launched in 2009, has raised about $25 million from investors to date.
The investor also owns apartment and condominium complexes in Iowa, Kansas and Illinois. Its portfolio totals more than 800 apartments.
Furniture Sale
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s departure from an Irvine Spectrum office tower early next year could result in a big chunk of business for a Costa Mesa-based office furniture company.
Total Office Online Inc., a seller of used office furniture, said this month it purchased “the entire lot” of the FDIC’s office furniture at its 40 Pacifica location.
The company said it will be reselling the furniture once the FDIC begins to vacate 40 Pacifica, a move that’s expected to be completed by the start of next year. Pricing wasn’t disclosed.
“All of the furniture is 2.5 years old and is all matching and in pristine condition,” according to Total Office Online.
The FDIC has occupied nine floors at the building, according to Total Office officials.
Santa Ana-based CoreLogic Inc. is slated to move into 40 Pacifica next summer, after signing a 170,000-square-foot lease last month. It’s one of the larger office leases seen in OC of late.
The FDIC’s short-term lease at the building was for about 200,000 square feet.
