Realestate/24″/CW1st/mark2nd
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you: Bristol Farms.
Well, maybe not to every neighborhood, but the gourmet grocer is in the midst of an expansion around the Westside.
Bristol Farms has signed a lease for the Brentwood Country Mart on 26th Street, and also plans to go into the former Chasen’s restaurant building in West Hollywood. And it recently opened a store at Sunset Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.
At the country mart site, Bristol Farms is taking over the space vacated by Brentwood Farms and plans to open Sept. 1, said Carie Boyce, vice president of real estate for Bristol Farms.
The 50-year-old country mart is a familiar Westside landmark, with its red barn exterior. It was originally a farmer’s market but evolved to include smaller mom-and-pop and upscale specialty shops over the years.
Brentwood Farms, which was in the space less than four years, was operated by the owner of the former Fireside Market on Montana Avenue, who moved to Brentwood after natural food store Wild Oats took over the space on Montana.
Typical Bristol Farms are 20,000-25,000 square feet, but Boyce said this location will be 10,000 square feet as part of the company’s experiment with a smaller format in urban areas.
“We have quite a few in planning,” she said.
After Brentwood opens, El Segundo-based Bristol Farms will have 10 stores around Southern California. That number is expected to increase to 12 to 15 next spring, Boyce said.
“We’d love to be in Westwood and Century City and maybe another part of Santa Monica,” she said.
Regent Properties plans to include a gourmet market in its Westwood Marketplace retail-entertainment project. Boyce said a Bristol Farms might be a possibility there.
Industrial action
A buyer has been selected for the AEW Capital Management industrial portfolio: Bristol Group, a San Francisco-based pension fund advisor.
The sale, at about $151 million, is expected to be the largest California industrial transaction of the year. Most of the 3 million-square-foot portfolio of properties are in the South Bay and La Mirada.
They include the La Mirada Commerce Center, L.A. Business Center in Compton and the Dominguez Hills Center and University Commerce Center in Rancho Dominguez.
Bristol Group is an advisor to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System. The deal is in contract and expected to close later in the year.
Officials at Eastdil Realty, which is brokering the sale, declined comment.
Beverly Hills building sold
A three-story medical office building in Beverly Hills’ Golden Triangle has sold for $9.7 million, said Jordan Weinberg, a broker at Beitler Commercial Realty Services who represented the seller with colleague David Ara.
BLMP Partnership sold the 34,000-square-foot building at 462 N. Linden Drive to a local family, who now owns an entire block, comprising 110,000 square feet of buildings and an acre and a half of land, Weinberg said.
An interesting aspect of the sale was the “prescriptive easement” the building had with a contiguous structure. The new owner had owned the connected building for several years. Because of the unwritten easement, the doors were kept open between the two to maintain access.
“If one building decided to shut the doors, you could have a potential lawsuit,” Weinberg said. But with one owner, that will no longer be an issue.
The buyer was represented by Fred Fardoost of Realty Investments.
Van Nuys building sold
Genesis Media Property Group has bought an 87,000-square-foot, class A office building in Van Nuys for $11 million.
Genesis, an Internet-related firm, is occupying the majority of the space, said Ron Feder of RJ Feder & Associates. Feder represented the seller, along with Trevor Belden and John Battle of Lee & Associates.
The seller of the 10-year-old building, at 5805 Sepulveda Blvd., was Sepulveda Hatteras Ltd. The property was close to default, with Imperial Bank trying to sell the note at a discount. But before that happened, the sale went through to the satisfaction of all parties, sources said.
The buyer was represented by Stacy Vierhelig-Fraser of Charles Dunn Co.
Job Hop
The parade of real estate veterans joining different firms continues.
John McRoskey, who has spent the last 10 years with Cushman Realty, is joining CB Richard Ellis to enhance its tenant representation business.
McRoskey had been with CB for nine years before moving to Cushman. He will join a team that includes his brother, Mike, who will be moving downtown from the Westside.
News & Notes
To clarify an item that ran last week, Grubb & Ellis is relocating the regional headquarters of its property management services division (not to be confused with its brokerage division) from the San Fernando Valley to downtown.
The Hertz Group, which bought the Wiltern Theatre complex last year, has now sold off the Ralphs grocery store behind the theater for $14 million to an unnamed investor.
In a major expansion, Troika Networks, which does high-speed networking, has leased 28,000-square-feet at 2829 Townsgate Rd. in Westlake Village, a project owned by Kilroy Realty Corp., said Richard Abbitt of Lee & Associates, who represented Troika. The five-year lease is valued at about $4 million.
Staff reporter Elizabeth Hayes can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 229, or at [email protected].
