Karney Management Co., a Brentwood firm run by Aliza Karney Guren and her sister, Susanna Karney Flaster, has set its sights on Culver City.
The firm purchased Robertson Business Park earlier this month for $37 million, or roughly $325 a square foot, from UDC Properties, a Culver City business operated by Ruben Urcis. The park, which was last week renamed Robertson Station for its proximity to the Culver City Expo Line stop, is composed of two two-story buildings and a four-story parking structure.
The larger of the two, an 86,000-square-foot Class B office building at 3710 Robertson Blvd., is 94 percent occupied and anchored by a FedEx shop. The 28,000-square-foot Class B office building at 3750 S. Robertson is fully leased by several small tenants.
Karney bought the space for much lower than the average sale price for office buildings in Culver City, which is $483 a square foot, according to data from CoStar Group Inc. However, the average has been driven up by creative office sales, like the Beats by Dre headquarters building that sold earlier this year for more than $860 a square foot.
Brentwood firm LesMark’s Mark Berman, who represented both the buyer and seller in the transaction along with Les Small, said the price might have been lower because most of the leasable spaces are small.
“We made a decision as a family, looking to the next generation, to reposition our real estate to an area that would provide growth,” said Karney Guren. “We love the way Culver City is run, from its planning department to its city council. There is no area growing with such leadership and transportation, and it’s drawing in tech companies. In my mind, it’s the place to be.”
It’s not the firm’s first Culver City purchase. On May 8, Karney bought a 45,000-square-foot Class C Building at 8740 Washington Blvd. for $22 million from the Exceptional Children’s Foundation. The nonprofit takes the full building through a lease-back agreement, and will until it finds a place to relocate, said Karen Katro Shokrai, vice president of administration for the foundation.
