West L.A. Office Property Bought for $9.6 Million

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A three-story office building in West Los Angeles called Corinth Gardens has changed hands in an off-market transaction for $9.6 million.

The deal for the 2211 Corinth Ave. building at Olympic Boulevard just west of the San Diego (405) Freeway closed in mid-February. The buyer was Solomon Aryeh, a local real estate investor, and the seller was PMI Financial, a Bel Air-based real estate investment company.

The deal for the 24,110-square-foot building, which is 95 percent leased and sits on one-third of an acre, breaks down to $398 per square-foot.

“It goes to show you that deals are still getting done even in a crazy market where there seems to be limited debt in the marketplace,” said Bob Safai of Madison Partners, who represented both sides of the deal.

Safai said that the deal was financed through a local regional bank.

About 50 percent of tenants at the 1988 building are medical office tenants, with others in the entertainment industry. The building features a landscape courtyard with a fountain, and was renovated about 10 years ago.


Office Condos

In the midst of a residential real estate market in freefall, some developers of condo projects have converted their properties to apartment buildings, with the hopes of keeping them occupied.

But Studio City-based developer DT Group Development Inc. has taken a different approach in repositioning one of its residential projects, NoHo Lofts.

DT Group developed the building at 5355 Cartwright Ave. in 2006 as a live/work apartment complex. Earlier this year, the company instead began selling the 68 units in the project as office condos.

So how did that change come about?

When the company bought the property in June 2003 for $4.39 million, it took ownership of a large warehouse building that had been used by small entertainment production companies, said Dan Markel, DT Group president.

“It was a big, beaten up warehouse,” he said.

The company converted the project into a property suitable for residential uses, while retaining the funky architecture and design.

“It was a real transformation,” he said. “The idea was, keep this beautiful exposed brick and three foot thick cement floors.” An average unit at the building is about 980 square feet.

But when the company began marketing the project in summer 2006, the original entertainment businesses came back to rent units anyway. Markel said that the project’s location near the Hollywood studios made it enticing to these businesses.

When the real estate slowdown hit last year, Markel said his company considered selling the project but institutional buyers didn’t know how to classify the project. DT Group opened up a dialogue with its tenants and many said they wanted to purchase their units.

Now the project is being marketed as an office campus and Ramsey-Shilling Commercial Real Estate Services Inc. has the listing for the office condos. Since sales began about 40 days ago, 20 percent of the building’s units have been sold.

“Nearly all are existing tenants,” Markel said, adding that even in a tough credit market financing the sales is relatively easy because buyers can get Small Business Administration loans.

The average per foot per month rental rate was about $2.30 and now the average asking price is $450 per foot.


Chinese Project

A year ago, L.A.-based Rothenberg Sawasy Architects Inc. began conceptual design work on a 2.3 million-square-foot mixed-use project in Nanjing, China. Now, work is well under way on the Venice Water City project.

Construction began in late October on the massive project, which will include 10 residential towers, and will be done in 14 months. Compared to the typical development timeline in L.A., the project is being executed at a sprinter’s pace.

“It is because of the Chinese government and the attitude is, we are the people, we don’t need to go and get approvals from the public,” said Mark Rothenberg, managing principal of RSA and principal in charge of the project.

Chinese electronics company Suning Corp. is developing the project, which overlooks the Yangtze River.

RSA has had an office in Beijing for about three years, which now accounts for 10 percent of its work. The architecture firm is looking for more work there, Rothenberg said.

The towers range from 11 to 31 stories and will have a total of 1867 residential units and 53,000 square feet of retail space.


Staff reporter Daniel Miller can be reached at

[email protected]

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

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