Carmichael International Service has signed a nearly 29,000-square-foot lease valued at more than $10.4 million in Monterey Park.
The full-floor lease is for a property at 1200 Corporate Center Drive.
NAI Capital’s Joseph Faulkner represented Carmichael International Service in the transaction. Kidder Mathews’ Linda Lee, Bill Boyd and Scott Unger represented the owner, Omninet Capital, in the transaction.
The property on Corporate Center Drive is a three-story, nearly 85,000-square-foot building on 4.7 acres in the Los Angeles Corporate Center.
Carmichael International Service, a customs broker and freight forwarder, will use the location as its headquarters.
“Carmichael International had not moved in 35 years. They were in a building near Glendale Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway, which 35 years ago was a better location than it is now,” Faulkner said. “They got a new president and a new owner of the company and got license to throw the net out and see what they could find.”
Lee said the company would occupy the space in November or December.
“It’s centrally located and has easy access to the 710 and 10 Freeways. It was a really good location for the relocation of this tenant’s headquarters,” she said.
Lee said the deal was atypical for the market now in that many tenants are only signing short-term leases and downsizing whereas Carmichael International Service signed a long-term lease, despite the Covid-19 pandemic causing market uncertainty.
“They are an essential business,” Faulkner said. “They continue to operate throughout (Covid-19) although they are doing remote work like everyone else. They opted to go for a long-term lease because that’s what they needed to do to secure this space.”
“Strategically, it’s a wonderful thing for them and should enhance their ability to hire people and retain people,” Faulkner added.
Office space in the San Gabriel Valley had a vacancy rate of 12.3% during the second quarter, compared with 10.9% the previous quarter, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. data. The average asking rate for Class A space in the area was $2.56 a square foot, on par with the previous quarter but up 2 cents year over year. The submarket had roughly negative 116,000 square feet of net absorption during the quarter.
Lee called Monterey Park “one of the most stable submarkets in the Los Angeles County office market” due to “lack of new inventory; affordable, competitive rents; and easy access to labor and freeways.”
