A towering Miracle Mile office building at 5900 Wilshire Blvd. attracted a sky-high sale price of $312 million.
The 32-story skyscraper, the tallest building along the Miracle Mile, is the latest big-budget property to change hands in the area.
Rockpoint Group purchased the 465,000-square-foot office building, located across from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from PGIM Inc., AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co. and Ratkovich Co.
Rockpoint Group could not immediately be reached for comment.
The building’s vacancy rate at the time of the sale was roughly 12%, according to data from CoStar Group Inc.
LACMA leases roughly 75,000 square feet at the property and secured naming rights to the building when entertainment company SBEEG Holdings Licensing, known as SBE, vacated the top two floors, CoStar reported.
Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. listed the property. The buyer was self-represented in the transaction.
JLL’s Tom Bohlinger, one of the listing agents, said the building’s location made it highly desirable.
“The buyer sees this market as one that has a fantastic future,” Bohlinger said. “It’s about the most iconic, best located property within the market. Its proximity to LACMA gives it a wonderful sense of place. LACMA also provides good stability of income.”
“The buyer sees the potential for tremendous upside due to both the media industry’s influence on that market, the amount of new housing being built there, and the extension of the Purple Line, which will eventually allow people working or living in the quarter service to the Westside and downtown,” he added.
Bohlinger said the sellers had made several building improvements, and he expects Rockpoint Group to continue making upgrades.
Other recent sales in the area include the 169-unit multifamily property The Preston Miracle Mile, which was acquired for $86.8 million from Newport Beach-based Sares-Regis Group.
Changing market
The Miracle Mile — bordered by 3rd Street, Highland Avenue, San Vicente Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue — has a number of large projects underway.
Most of them fall into two categories: multifamily projects and museums.
The highly anticipated — and delayed — Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in the former May Co. building on Wilshire Boulevard is scheduled to open Dec. 14. It will be home to numerous exhibits on the history of film and have a dome-shaped theater.
LACMA is undergoing a $650 million remodel, which will create a large gallery stretching across Wilshire Boulevard. It is being designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.
The La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum, which is part of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, will undergo a huge update as well, including a bridge that spans the lake pit and an expansion of the museum designed by Weiss/Manfredi.
In terms of multifamily properties, construction is underway on iconic developer Jerry Snyder’s 285-unit Residences at Wilshire Curson. Once completed in early 2021, it will have a rooftop pool and lounge areas.
Developer Walter Marks is working to entitle a $400 million, 42-story tower at 5411 Wilshire Blvd.
Additional developments planned for the area include a building with 121 condos, 125 hotel rooms and retail space, as well as a separate 209-unit project that will include a paseo running between it and longtime Los Angeles saloon Tom Bergin’s.
The Metro Purple Line extension, experts agree, is a huge boon to the area. It will have a stop in the Miracle Mile and run from downtown to the Westside.
High rents and the desirability of nearby areas have escalated demand for space in the Miracle Mile.
“You have an increasing influence of the media industry in that market because of its strategic location close to Hollywood and Beverly Hills,” Bohlinger said.
The asking rate for office space in the Miracle Mile during the fourth quarter was $4.29 a square foot, according to data from JLL, which was much lower than the $5.33 a square foot asking rate in Hollywood and the $5.91 a square foot asking rate in Beverly Hills.