Westlake Park Place, a Westlake Village office campus that boasts five buildings on 13 acres, was sold late last month to an institutional investor for close to $100 million.
Invesco Real Estate, an arm of public investment management company Invesco Ltd. of Atlanta, closed its purchase of the 240,000-square-foot campus Dec. 23 in a sale that industry sources estimate was valued at nearly $418 a square foot.
Sellers Amstar, Travelers Cos. Inc. and Searles Property Group developed the property at 2915-3027 Townsgate Road in 2008 and brought it to 96 percent occupancy before selling. Homebuilder Ryland Group Inc. is one of the largest tenants at the six-year-old campus, which also includes large financial tenants PacWest Bancorp, UBS and Comerica.
Kevin Shannon, Ken White, Tom Bohlinger, Brad Burton and Mike Longo – all of CBRE Group Inc. – marketed the property for the sellers.
Shannon said the property was on the market for about five weeks before it started getting offers and it closed within 30 days of receiving a final offer.
“It moved quickly through the marketing process,” he said. “We had over 80 people sign the confidentiality agreement and we generated 10 offers from that group. The most interested buyers were institutional buyers.”
Shannon said investors were most attracted to the project’s lease rates, which at $3 to $3.20 a square foot a month are at the top of the market for the wealthy suburb.
Asking rents for Class A properties in the West San Fernando Valley averaged $2.31 a foot a month in the fourth quarter, according to data from Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., down a nickel from the prior quarter but still a full 18 cents higher than the year earlier.
“This is the newest, best-in-class property in Westlake Village with walkable amenities and great access to the freeway,” he said. “As a result, it’s commanding higher rents than the balance of competing properties.”
The partnership that sold Westlake Park Place held onto 12 acres of the original site and plans to develop three more office buildings at 3045-3075 Townsgate.
Shannon said the sellers plan to begin construction on at least one of the three proposed buildings shortly, after preleasing it.
None of the sellers returned requests
for comment.
