Buyer Locks Up Office Building for $12.7 Million

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A 51,288-square-foot Culver City office building has sold for $12.7 million in the second-highest sale in the city in the last year.

An entity controlled by West L.A. real estate management company Realty Center Management Inc. this month bought the three-story property at 6133 Bristol Parkway from Praedium/Palisades Partners in Irvine.

The $247-a-foot price follows only the $287 a foot paid for an office building at 800 Corporate Pointe in a $69.2 million November deal.

Praedium/Palisades purchased the property in 2010 for $8.35 million, $163 a square foot, when it was about 75 percent leased. The company planned to upgrade the property and increase its occupancy to 90 percent before putting it up for sale. The property is now about 85 percent leased.

But the buyer, which had been seeking office space on the Westside, made an off-the-market offer for the property. It sought to occupy up to 10,000 square feet as well as own an income-generating office building.

“They saw it could be a win-win,” said Steve Solomon, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.’s managing director, who represented the seller in the deal.

Realty Center plans to move to the Culver City site from its current offices at Bundy Drive and Olympic Boulevard by the end of the summer. It plans to continue to operate the building, which has asking rates of about $2.25 a square foot, as is.

Solomon noted that the sale reflected the growing attractiveness of the Culver City market to cost-conscious buyers as other Westside communities heat up.

“They liked it because they could buy a nice office building in West L.A. for under $250 a foot and that same building in Playa Vista would sell for $400 a square foot; that’s just a mile away,” he said. “There’s a lot of demand and I expect the sales market to continue at this momentum for the next 12 to 18 months.”

Jones Lang LaSalle’s Chris Strickfaden also represented the seller in the transaction. The buyer was represented by James Hooks of Cresa and Greg Gill at Lee & Associates.


Warner Center Sale

A newly constructed 244-unit apartment complex in Woodland Hills’ Warner Center has sold for $84 million in the highest price per-square-foot sale of its kind in the area in more than a year.

Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund this month purchased the property at 6355 De Soto Ave., known as Oceano Warner Center, from a development partnership of New York real estate investor Dune Real Estate Partners; Irving, Texas, real estate firm TDI Real Estate Holdings; and an undisclosed land owner.

The $368-per-square-foot price made it the highest multifamily deal on a per-square-foot basis in the Warner Center area in more than a year.

The selling partnership was created in 2011 with a $1 billion platform to develop and sell multifamily properties across the United States. That year, the owner of the De Soto property contributed the vacant site, valued at $14 million, and joined the partnership.

Construction began shortly thereafter. The project began preleasing in August and received its certificate of occupancy in December.

Today, the project is 82 percent leased with an average asking rent of about $2,174 a month.

The apartments, which average 935 square feet, range from one-bedroom, one-bathroom to two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom units.

CBRE Group Inc.’s Bob Patterson, who represented the seller, said that project should benefit from a new specific plan approved for Warner Center this year that encourages higher-density development.

“With a new specific plan in place it’s going to get harder to build low density (like this project) in that area,” he said. “The way it’s designed, with 40 percent of the parking underground and 60 percent on grade, you can’t build it anymore in Warner Center.”

CBRE’s Laurie Lustig-Bower and Tyler Anderson also represented TDI and Dune. The buyer was represented internally.

New Senior Homes

Construction has started on a $28.5 million affordable housing community for low-income seniors in South Los Angeles.

Long Beach-based Retirement Housing Foundation is developing the 89-unit, five-story apartment project known as Broadwood Terrace, at 5001-25 S. Main St. Killefer Flammang Architects in Santa Monica is designing the project.

The project will comprise one- and two-bedroom units of between 600 and 900 square feet. It will include a 5,200-square-foot courtyard, library, gym and computer room.

The community is financed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and housing tax credits from the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee; it is scheduled to be completed next year.

Staff reporter Jacquelyn Ryan can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 228.

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