Yahoo Working on $90 Million Lease Deal at Santa Monica’s Colorado Center

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Yahoo Inc. is negotiating to lease about 250,000 square feet in Santa Monica’s Colorado Center, according to several sources familiar with the deal.


The 10-year lease under discussion could be worth more than $90 million to landlords Equity Office Properties Trust and New York-based pension fund giant TIAA-CREF.


Sources said Yahoo executives want to have a deal in place by the end of the month. The Sunnyvale-based company would likely consolidate multimedia subsidiaries from throughout California into the space, they said.


By netting Yahoo as a tenant, the owners avoid the hit from Symantec Corp.’s departure from 250,000 square feet as it prepares to relocate to a new headquarters nearly twice that size in Culver City’s Corporate Pointe. Symantec’s lease runs out in 2007, presumably when construction of its new offices would be complete.


Meantime, Yahoo would start by leasing the complex’s current available space and then slowly expand as leases expire until it occupies the full amount in two years.


The deal accounts for more than 20 percent of the complex and guarantees the office park will be close to fully occupied for at least the next decade.


EOP spokeswoman Paige Steers declined comment, as did Gerald Porter, vice chairman with CRESA Partners, which is representing Yahoo in the deal.


The EOP/TIAA-CREF partnership purchased the 1.2 million-square-foot complex earlier this year from Tishman Speyer Properties Inc. for $432 million a price some in the investment community considered high even for a trophy Westside property.


Besides Symantec, other large tenants in the complex include Time Warner Inc.’s Home Box Office, advertising agency Rubin Postaer and Associates and the home video division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.


Yahoo has also been active in the L.A. region. The company’s Overture Services Inc., which pairs advertisers with Internet search engine results, inked a $100 million lease with developer M. David Paul & Associates for a build-to-suit headquarters in Burbank’s Media Studios North office park.

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