Austin has been a go-to source of business opportunities for Orange County’s commercial real estate industry in the past few years, with office and apartment investors in particular snapping up properties at a rapid clip in and around the Texas capital.
OC’s homebuilders are also beginning to take an increased interest in the city.
Irvine-based Standard Pacific Corp., the largest homebuilder based in OC, this month announced it is buying the homebuilding operations of Streetman Homes, a long-standing builder based in Austin that focuses on higher-priced, move-up homes.
Terms of the deal weren’t immediately disclosed.
The deal gives Standard Pacific control of about 850 homes in 10 communities. Five, including the Mueller Community three miles from downtown Austin, are actively selling.
The acquisition “bolsters our growth strategy by increasing our land supply, community count and our target move-up position” in Austin, said Standard Pacific Chief Executive Scott Stowell.
The builder already has a presence in the state, including new-home communities in Austin, but had traditionally grown in that market through individual land purchases rather than acquisitions of competitors.
Of the nearly $145 million in land purchases Standard Pacific made last quarter, about $17 million were in Texas, where the builder also has a large presence in the Dallas area.
Standard Pacific completed 149 home sales in Texas last quarter, compared to 339 in California, 235 in Florida, and 156 in the Carolinas.
The average price for a Standard Pacific home sale last quarter was $415,000, compared to $624,000 in California, according to the company’s latest financial report.
Standard Pacific’s Austin push adds to a long list of OC real estate companies recently doing business in Austin.
Others buying properties in and around that city over the past year include Buchanan Street Partners, MIG Real Estate LLC, KBS Realty Inc., all in Newport Beach, and Steadfast Cos. in Irvine.
Newport Beach-based developer Mark IV Capital Inc. has a new office project under way in Round Rock, a town about 10 miles north of downtown Austin.
Creative Lease
Bixby Land Co. in Irvine has landed a big tenant to take up more than half the space at one of its largest creative-office developments in the Silicon Valley.
The real estate investor and developer said it signed a unit of Verizon Communications to a 136,000-square-foot lease at a recently redeveloped project it owns in North San Jose.
About 700 Verizon employees are expected to move to the buildings, according to local reports.
Bixby bought the three-building San Jose complex last year and recently completed an estimated $26 million redevelopment project there, turning the site into a creative-office complex. About 90,000 square feet remain available for lease.
Bixby’s deal comes shortly after confirmation of another huge Silicon Valley office lease involving an Orange County property owner and a telecom operator. Sweden-based Ericsson recently said it would lease 400,000 square feet at Newport Beach-based Irvine Company’s Santa Clara Square development.
That deal is the largest office lease this year in the Silicon Valley, according to local reports.
BKM’s Back
BKM Capital Partners in Irvine paid $15.1 million for an industrial park in southeast Las Vegas.
The investor recently closed on the Patrick Commerce Center, a five-building industrial park totaling about 223,000 square feet. The 14-acre property is near McCarran International Airport.
BKM Capital is headed by Brian Malliet, who developed several multitenant industrial properties in OC in the last real estate cycle under a prior venture, BKM Development Co.
BKM Development was sold in 2009 to Voit Real Estate Services in Newport Beach, and Malliet served for several years as the brokerage’s chief investment and operations officer.
