This Week's LA Deal Sheet

Hawkwood Ventures paid $24M for Linq, a 50K SF creative office campus with two one-story office buildings at 2400 Marine Ave. in Redondo Beach. 

JLL’s Steve Solomon, Kristen Bowman and Andrew Harper represented the seller, EverWest Real Estate Investors. Hawkwood Ventures was represented by Jake Zacuto, Andrew Sinasohn and Connor Sears at Zacuto Group.

Linq is 100% leased to multiple tenants, including Uber and Amazon, property records show. The South Bay office and industrial submarkets are among the most active in Los Angeles, with tenants across a range of industries, including biotech, media and aerospace, according to JLL.

PEOPLE

Gensler has promoted Jill Wittnebel to managing director. Wittnebel, along with co-Managing Director Michael White, will lead the firm’s 500-person LA office of architects, designers, urban planners and strategists. Wittnebel has been key to the office’s development of people, office culture and hiring strategy, as well as a champion of diversity and inclusion initiatives, a release from Gensler said. 

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Real estate investment management firm Cityview hired Kyle Naye as senior director of acquisitions. Naye will manage acquisitions, including sourcing, underwriting, closing and developing comprehensive business plans for investors. Naye comes to Cityview from PGIM Real Estate, where he was a vice president of originations, providing transactions and underwriting oversight for core-plus and high-yield debt vehicles.

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Real estate law firm Pircher, Nichols & Meeks LLP has promoted Eric B. Shortz to partner. Before making partner, Shortz was a counsel team member at the firm. His work for the firm has run the gamut of real estate law, including the formation of joint ventures, negotiation and documentation of acquisition, sale, leasing, development and construction transactions, and bridge, permanent and mezzanine financings.

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Direct private lender Parkview Financial named Brad Ross managing director and head of originations. Ross will work out of Parkview’s Los Angeles headquarters, leading the firm’s nationwide team of originators and managing the investment process. Before joining Parkview, Ross was a vice president at Madison Realty Capital, where he established and oversaw the company’s LA office. 

LEASES

Federal Realty Investment Trust announced two new leases for The Collection, its retail-to-office conversion in El Segundo. Haus Laboratories, a vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics brand from pop star Lady Gaga, has leased 15.5K SF of office space. Cosmetic industry supplier Ideation Beauty inked a lease for 11K SF. When complete in summer 2021, The Collection will offer 48K SF of office space located within walking distance from two retail hubs: The Point and Plaza El Segundo. 

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A defense tech company called Anduril has leased all the office space that will be available in the converted former LA Times printing plant in Costa Mesa, plus some ground-up space that will be built west of the repurposed site. Anduril will lease 450K SF in the adaptively reused plant and an additional 190K SF new building that will function as research and development space for the company. The deal represents one of the largest office leases in the history of Orange County. 

The Press, as the former Times plant is called, is developed by San Francisco-based SteelWave and 5-Ronin, which is based in Orange County. The complex is expected to be move-in-ready before the end of next year. 

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JLL announced that international law firm Cozen O’Connor has signed a lease for just under 9.5K SF at One West Square, a 12-floor, Class-A office building at 401 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica. The firm’s old Santa Monica office on Ocean Avenue will relocate there. Cozen O’Connor also renewed its lease for its approximately 16K SF downtown LA office at 601 South Figueroa St.

JLL’s Darren Eades, Brian Niehaus and Cassie Trosclair represented Cozen O’Connor in both leases. In the Santa Monica lease, the landlord, Douglas Emmett, was represented in-house by Bob Zelken. In the Downtown LA lease, the landlord, Brookfield Properties, was represented in-house by Marin Turney.

SALES

CBRE announced the sale of Sierra Crest Center, a neighborhood retail and office center in Santa Clarita, California, to a joint venture group for $9.9M. Sierra Crest Center features a tenant mix of 69 national and regional tenants. 

The new ownership is a consortium of developers led by Synergize Ventures from Danville, California, New York-based Lotus Equity Partners and Ambassador Equities from Cleveland. The shopping center was the only sale over $3 million in Santa Clarita to happen since May of 2020, according to research by CBRE.  

CBRE’s Alex Kozakov, Patrick Wade and Matt Greenberg represented the buyer in the transaction.