AIDS Project Los Angeles has sold its headquarters at Vine Street and Fountain Avenue for $11 million to Accord Interests, an urban redevelopment firm that plans to develop creative office space to cash in on the Hollywood revival.
The purchase is Accord Interests’ first foray into Hollywood. The firm’s last creative office space project was the Nickelodeon Animation Center in Burbank, which it completed in 1998. It also developed the new Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Pasadena.
Accord Interests plans to expand the 120,000-square-foot building at 1313 Vine St. to 200,000 square feet, by adding to the two upper floors and converting atrium common area into offices. Elsewhere on the 3.5-acre site, plans call for the addition of a five-story office building with 88,000 square feet of space, and a 315,000-square-foot, seven-story parking structure.
The existing building housed ABC Television after it was built in the 1940s as a four-story complex with eight surrounding studios, said Karl Sternbaum, a principal at Accord Interests who expects to lease the entire building to one major tenant.
“I think what we want to do is create an entertainment environment for office use,” Sternbaum said. “If the tenant wants to use one or more of the studios for production, that’s great.”
In the meantime, APLA has six rent-free months left in the building before it must relocate.
“During the decade APLA has occupied the building, (the agency’s needs) have all changed,” said Jeffrey Haber, a partner at Latham & Watkins and pro bono counsel to APLA who also serves on the board of the organization.
“About 10 years ago, they thought they would need a large space. It turns out now it’s better to have one small space and the ability to open smaller, satellite offices,” he said.
Two years ago, APLA made the decision to hold off on selling the property, even though offers were coming in at around $9 million. It seems to have been the right decision as revitalization and property values have picked up in Hollywood.
APLA’s new headquarters will be smaller possibly 40,000 square feet and in a less-expensive area, possibly Mid-Wilshire, according to Haber.
“Our mission is to serve the people with HIV and AIDS in L.A. County as best we can, and that’s what we’re going to try to continue to do,” Haber said. “Just not from as large a building.”
Medical Offices Bought
Long Beach-based Ensemble, a buyer that specializes in medical properties in the southwestern United States, has bought two medical office buildings in Inglewood, adjacent to Centinela Hospital, for $8.7 million.
The Centinela Medical Office Buildings, which have been in foreclosure, were sold by Washington Mutual Inc., said Kevin Shannon, the senior vice president at Grubb & Ellis Co. who represented both the buyer and seller in the deal, along with Michael Moore.
The two buildings on East Hardy Street, with a combined 102,022 square feet of space, are only 62 percent leased, in large part because of the departure of the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic a year and a half ago, Shannon said.
The clinic which occupied most of the larger, 63,122-square-foot medical building moved into a build-to-suit office at Arden Realty Inc.’s Howard Hughes Center, Shannon said.
Wateridge Work to Start
The ink on the $50 million, Wateridge Park deal in Culver City is still drying, but new owner Crown Realty & Development already has the shovels at the ready for a 200,000-square-foot addition.
The day Newport Beach-based Crown Realty closed escrow on the 21-acre property, the paperwork was signed on financing for a new five-story, 200,000-square-foot spec office building that is slated to start construction by the end of next week, said Robert Flaxman, president of Crown Realty.
The new building is part of a plan to nearly double the existing 330,000 square feet of office space at the complex. Plans for an additional 95,000-square-foot building would be set in motion once the new 200,000-square-foot building is at least 50 percent pre-leased.
The sale price was almost double the $28 million that sellers Legacy Partners Commercial and Goldman Sachs & Co. paid for it in November 1997.
Completed in 1990, the complex went into foreclosure during the recession until Koll-Bren Realty Advisers bought it in May 1996, said Steve Solomon, senior vice president at Colliers Seeley, who represented both sides in the recent deal.
And then Koll-Bren sold the property to Legacy/Goldman.
The asking monthly lease rate for the existing space at Wateridge Park is $2.25 a square foot.
Pasadena Connection
Avnet Inc.’s eConnections.com, a business-to-business site launched in April, will be moving to its own offices in Pasadena.
The company signed a five-year, $6.5 million lease with Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Group for almost two floors in the engineering giant’s Pasadena complex, said Robert Carter of Commercial Real Estate Services, which represented eConnections.com in the deal.
The Web firm has been operating out of the El Monte complex of parent company Avnet. It will now house all of its operations in the Pasadena offices on North Fair Oaks Avenue, including its technology staff, business functions and a small studio where the company will make videos about products available through the site.
Avnet now plans to sell eConnections.com’s former building in El Monte, Carter said.
Cerritos Development
Ground is about to be broken on an eight-story, spec office building at the big, mixed-use Cerritos Towne Center.
Transpacific Development Co. intends to construct a 165,000-square-foot building and a 185,000-square-foot parking structure there. The total estimated project cost is $30 million, and completion is set for late 2001.
All 675,000 square feet of existing office space at the Cerritos Towne Center is leased, according to Spieker Properties, which handles some of the leasing at the major mixed-use complex.
Transpacific, which has been the developer of all the office projects at Cerritos Towne Center, completed a 50,000-square-foot, two-story office building there last year.
Staff reporter Milo Peinemann
can be reached at: [email protected]
