Though it still lags behind the other Tri-Cities, the Glendale office market has made strides in recent months. Companies have been driven to Glendale because of higher rents and less available space in Pasadena and Burbank.

In the fourth quarter, the city saw its year-over-year vacancy rate drop two points to 14.1 percent, though that still topped Pasadena’s 10.1 percent rate and Burbank’s county-leading 3.8 percent rate, according to Grubb & Ellis Co.

And already two lease deals have been struck this year at Glendale’s 505 N. Brand Blvd. office building, taking a total of 25,519 square feet off of the market.

Joketown Inc., a production company, signed a three-year lease at the 16-story, Class A office building, and American Imaging Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of health care company WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis, signed a seven-year lease.

The property is owned by a British pension fund advised by LaSalle Investment Management Inc., a wholly owned but independent division of Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

American Imaging signed a 23,191-square-foot lease valued at $5.8 million and will occupy the entire ninth floor of the 320,000-square-foot building in June, said Jones Lang LaSalle Managing Director John McAniff, who represented the owner. It will be the first office on the West Coast for American Imaging, which wants to expand its business in what is one of the nation’s largest health care markets.

Joketown signed a three-year lease for 2,328 square feet on the 10th floor. The deal is valued at about $500,000.

The office building is 74 percent occupied and the asking rent at the property is $2.85 per square foot per month. Both deals closed at the end of January for about $2.70 per square foot, McAniff said.

Tim Miller and Greg Nassir of Jones Lang LaSalle also represented the landlord. American Imaging Management was represented by David Stein of Steinco Inc. and Joketown was represented by Mike Neil and Jerry Wacker of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.

Maguire Mulls Sale

As talk drags on about a deal for Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust Maguire Properties Inc., the company’s stock is heading nowhere but down.

Shares closed at $20.99 on March 6, off 29 percent since opening the year at $29.50 on Jan. 2.

One big problem: Maguire remains highly leveraged from a large purchase of Orange County office buildings last year just before several subprime lenders closed shop or pulled back, raising vacancy rates in the market.

“I think the probability of whether a deal happens is a coin toss, or maybe worse,” said Michael Knott, an analyst for Newport Beach-based Green Street Advisors Inc. “It is a tough environment out there and there is a lot of negative psychology about real estate values.”

On March 6 an RBC Capital Markets analyst downgraded the stock a day after the company announced that it was pushing back its annual shareholders meeting from July to on or after August 1.

Barry Vinocur, editor of REIT Zone, an influential REIT industry publication, said that the meeting was likely rescheduled so that the company could deal with technical issues regarding a possible sale.

Vinocur said his sources reported there is an “80 to 85 percent” chance of a sale occurring, and speculated that the purchase price could be in the $22-$27 per share range.

Brookfield Properties Corp. is said to be interested in purchasing the highly-leveraged REIT. A Brookfield spokesperson declined to comment.

Chief Executive Robert Maguire also has put together a collection of investors to bid for the company. Earlier this year Vinocur reported that Colony Capital LLC and the Qatar Investment Authority were part of Maguire’s group. Industry analysts say that group has now fallen apart.

Vinocur said that if a deal doesn’t get done the stock price could drop down to the $17 range.

Condo Transformation

A four-story Class A office building at Warner Center has changed hands for $14.2 million and the new owner plans to convert it into office condos.

Buyer Venture Corp., a Larkspur-based office developer, plans to subdivide the 46,244-square-foot building into for-sale condos and rename it Venture Warner Center. The sale breaks down to $307 per square foot. The seller was Ashrad LLC, a consumer electronics trading company that had its headquarters at the building but now is based in Van Nuys.

“There really have not been any significant office condo projects available in the west San Fernando Valley to date,” said Roger Beck of Colliers International Property Consultants Inc., who represented both sides of the deal. Beck also will broker the condo sales.

The conversion of the building is already under way. Units will fall into the 2,000 to 10,000-square-foot range and should be ready for occupancy in the fall, Beck said.

John DeGrinis of Colliers also represented both sides of the deal. The deal for the 1979 building closed in December.

Staff reporter Daniel Miller can be reached at

[email protected]

or (323) 549-5225, ext. 263.