In the larger deal, LaSalle Investment Management acquired a Beverly Hills property owned by UBS Realty Investors for $74.4 million.
The five-story office building is located at 9033 Wilshire Blvd. It has nearly 50,000 square feet and counts USC’s Keck Medical Center as an anchor tenant.
Newmark Group Inc.’s Kevin Shannon, Rob Hannan, Ken White and Laura Stumm represented the seller. Newmark’s Steven Salas also helped with the sale, which the brokerage announced March 25.
“The medical sector is a high-conviction product for investment capital post-pandemic because of the typical predictability and durability of their tenants,” Shannon said in a statement.
The property was renovated in 2011. It was designed by SIM & Associates and contains a surgery center, a full-service pharmacy and valet parking.
Beverly Hills continues to see high demand for medical office space, with direct vacancy in the single digits since 2002, according to Newmark data.
The property “is one of the elite medical office buildings in Beverly Hills. Its elevated status has attracted leading physicians in their practices who have patients travelling from all around the world for care,” Hannan said in a statement.
In the second sale, Brentwood-based GPI Cos. purchased a nearly 30,000-square-foot medical office building in Santa Monica for $22.5 million.
The property, located at 1450 10th St., was sold by Lexham. It was renovated in 2008 and is leased to Kaiser Permanente as well as medical specialists.
The building was 95% leased at the time of the sale, according to CoStar Group Inc.
Medical office space has fared better than conventional offices during the Covid-19
pandemic. Market experts say patients prefer to go to office buildings near their homes instead of crowded hospitals during the pandemic, while doctors favor offices spaces over hospitals for similar reasons.
Because of the high costs for a tenant to build out medical office space, the buildings tend to have much lower turnover than conventional office properties.
Earlier in March, Newmark announced the sale of an 8,409-square-foot medical office building in Carson for $5.1 million. The building sits on more than an acre at 21501 Avalon Blvd. and is 100% leased to Providence Health & Services.
And in February, CBRE Group Inc. announced the sale of a 28,295-square-foot mixed-use retail and medical office property in Koreatown. MCDG Holding purchased the site for $15.3 million from EJS Properties. The three-story property is located at 2970 W. Olympic Blvd. and has 20,000 square feet.
