Law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP has struck a deal to sell the downtown L.A. building at 400 S. Hope St. that it has owned for nearly a quarter century.
O’Melveny is selling the 26-story building to New York-based real estate investment firm Tishman Speyer Properties LP for roughly $245 million, according to sources close to the deal.
The price far outstrips the $180 million that brokers believed the building would fetch.
Tishman Speyer is paying about $349 a square foot for the 701,000-square-foot building. Last month, Trizec Properties Inc. paid $343 a foot paid for a roughly 1 million-square-foot trophy office tower at 601 S. Figueroa St.
Still, the Mellon Bank building, as it’s known, is 94 percent leased, while 601 S. Figueroa St., a higher quality building, has looming vacancy issues.
O’Melveny and financial services giant Capital Group of Cos. are locked into long-term leases that account for nearly two-thirds of the building.
O’Melveny’s partner pension plan was a part-owner of the building with the developer, Olympia & York Developments Ltd. When Olympia declared bankruptcy a few years later, O’Melveny bought up the remaining share.
Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Richard Plummer, David Hasbrouck and Bill Puget represented O’Melveny in the sale. The Plummer-led group and O’Melveny didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Rick Matthews, a Tishman Speyer outside publicist, said company executives declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Tishman also struck a deal to buy 407 N. Maple Drive in Beverly Hills from a partnership that includes entertainment mogul David Geffen and health care magnate Bernard Salick.
Tishman is paying $71 million for the 160,000-square-foot building, uniquely designed by architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates a New York firm catering to stars and the super-rich.
The building, completed nearly two years ago, has never been occupied. Geffen and Salick unsuccessfully sought to convince the Beverly Hills City Council to allow the building to be used as a cardiac care center.
When the city council vetoed the change of use from an office building, Geffen and Salick hired Bob Safai, a principal at Madison Partners, to find a buyer. Safai didn’t return calls seeking comment.
The purchase gives Tishman a strong Beverly Hills presence. The company recently bought a large nearby office building at 335-345 N. Maple Drive.
