Newmark announces it has completed the $63.75 million sale of HERE, a five-building creative office campus in South Orange County, California. Newmark Co-Head of U.S. Capital Markets Kevin Shannon, Executive Managing Directors Paul Jones and Brunson Howard and Director Brandon White represented the sellers, Cigna Realty Investors and Cruzan. The buyers were Kingsbarn Realty Capital and Kelemen Company.
HERE is a five-building creative office campus totaling 223,974 square feet and situated on approximately 16 acres of land. Originally built in 1988/1989, the property was renovated in 2016/2017 with updates to lobbies, corridors and restrooms, and repositioned as creative office space. It was 84% leased at the time of sale. Property amenities include lake and mountain views, an outdoor lounge, a fitness facility with showers and lockers, a conference center, abundant surface parking and multiple open-air patios.
“Our team had tremendous interest for this deal from a wide range of investors and various capital profiles despite turbulent capital markets,” said Jones. “The fully repositioned creative office campus offered Kingsbarn and Kelemen Company ultimate optionality for its business plan, with potential options that include continuing to push creative office rents, selling the five individual buildings to owner/users or redeveloping the site to multifamily.”
Located in the Laguna Hills submarket, the property is situated in one of the most energized creative office markets in the region and is proximate to Interstate 5, providing connectivity to Irvine and Southern California. It is directly adjacent to a retail center, providing tenants numerous shopping and dining options.
Demand for Class A buildings in the Orange Country office market remains steady, according to Newmark Research, even as decision makers await stability of remote-work patterns to define long-term real estate needs. Going forward, resilient and attractive pockets of the market will fare better than others, especially as the market remains in a wait-and-see position as it navigates the current economic climate.
