The Deal Sheet
The Beach Boys famously grew up in Hawthorne, despite it being landlocked. (We're inspired by what we want, not what we have.) Now another innovator wants to grow there: ThinKom Solutions. The high-mobile broadband antenna provider signed a 75k SF HQ lease in OceanGate Business Park for a relo and expansion.
PM Realty Group SVP Mark Mattis (drumming with his band Pavlov's Dog at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach), who repped ThinKom along with JLL's Chris Strickfaden, tells us the space triples ThinKom's current facility in Torrance. It allows the company to bring in-house some of the manufacturing that has been contracted out in the past. "Finding a space for these guys was tough because there were very few alternatives that had the percentage of office space we were looking for"—about one-third of the building. However, this particular building has excess parking, allowing ThinKom to build out an additional 20k SF of offices. SCO Advisors' Britt Shuford repped the landlord, St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance.
ThinKom's antennas focus on aeronautical and on-the-move applications for commercial, civil, and military uses. Its tech is being used by Gogo Inflight to launch 2Ku satellite enabled Wi-Fi connectivity for commercial airplanes, which isn't as simple as it sounds. Mark says it's a much more complicated antenna system because you have two moving objects, a satellite and plane, trying to communicate. (Imagine trying to chat with your buddy in another car while you're both roaring down the 405—not that you should do that, of course.) "The next time you get on a flight that has Wi-Fi, chances are that's a ThinKom antenna attached to the plane." By the way, Mark's wife Shauna is also in the biz, as an SVP with Wilson Commercial.
SALES
As we celebrate the red, white, and blue tomorrow, we'll also be thinking about green—as in the $132.7M that Latitude 34 just fetched in Playa Vista. ASB Real Estate Investments sold the 301k SF office complex to Clarion Partners. ASB and Lincoln Property developed the LEED Gold campus, which includes two mid-rise office buildings and a freestanding parking structure, in 2010. Clarion says it has retained Lincoln and LA Realty Partners for management and leasing, and it'll implement Gensler-designed capital improvements and creative spec suites. CBRE's Kevin Shannon repped ASB in the sale.LEASES
FaceFirst, which specializes in facial recognition software, leased 6,331 SF at LC3: Lindero Canyon Creative Campus (31416 Agoura Rd in Westlake Village), bringing the project to 95% leased. CBRE's Michael Slater and Tom Dwyer repped the landlord and Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's Ryan Harding repped the tenant, which is relocating from Camarillo. Agoura and Lindero Associates LLC, managed by Creative Office Properties, purchased the 65k SF, traditional office building 64% vacant in late 2012 and converted it into a creative office environment.
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NationBuilder signed a 10-year lease for nearly 55k SF of office space in Biltmore Court, 520 S Grand Ave in Downtown LA. The software company will occupy the entire second floor of the building, part of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, and hired Wolcott Architecture to give the space a creative makeover, including an outdoor walkway and lounge area overlooking Pershing Square. This is the third move in DTLA for the 120-employee NationBuilder, which started in the CEO's apartment in 2009. CBRE’s Andrew Tashjian repped landlord WHB Biltmore LLC. Travers Realty's Dennis Smith and Griffin Farriss repped the tenant. According to CBRE Research, this is the largest office lease by a tech start-up in Downtown LA as well as the largest lease in the Biltmore's history.
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Silver Commercial completed a 50-year ground lease on the Cahuenga Corridor in Hollywood, one block north of Sunset Blvd, for a boutique hotel development. Plans call for a seven-story, 55-room hotel featuring a rooftop pool, bar, and restaurant. Silver Commercial, led by Kathleen Silver and Kay Sasatomi, repped both sides.
CONSTRUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Officials from Portland-based Williams & Dame, including chairman Homer Williams (fifth from right), and Seattle-based American Life cut the ribbon on the 23-story, 174-room Courtyard and 219-suite Residence Inn L.A. LIVE. The $172M development marks the West Coast's first dually branded Residence Inn and Courtyard by Marriott in one building. The hotels share a lobby as well as nearly 12k SF of meeting facilities and 5,100 SF of restaurant space. Ninety-five percent of the project's funding came from the EB-5 foreign investor program.
