This Week's LA Deal Sheet

Watermarke Properties paid $36M for a two-building, eight-story Santa Ana office property positioned as an office-to-multifamily redevelopment opportunity.

Watermarke plans to pursue entitlements that would allow it to build a phased multifamily development at the site. 

Newmark co-Head of U.S. Capital Markets Kevin Shannon, Executive Managing Directors Paul Jones and Ken White, Senior Managing Director Chris Benton, Managing Director Anthony Muhlstein and Director Brandon White represented the seller, who wasn't disclosed in a release from Newmark. 

Property records and prior reports indicate that the seller was Cress Capital, which purchased the nearly 300K SF property, called The Sandpointe, in 2017, paying approximately $52.7M, according to property records site Reonomy. 

In the first quarter of this year, three of the largest office sales in Orange County were slated for future conversions, according to Newmark.

SALES

CBRE announced the $12.1M sale of two multifamily communities totaling 38 units in Orange County in a 1031 exchange. CBRE Executive Vice President Dan Blackwell, First Vice President Mike O’Neill and senior associate Andrew Boukather represented both the buyer and seller in the sale of 18 units at 1800 West Glencrest Ave. in Anaheim for $4.8M. Blackwell and O’Neill represented the seller of the 20-unit property at 1887 Monrovia Ave. in Costa Mesa for $7.3M. All parties involved were private investors based in Southern California.

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CapRock Partners bought a 3.1-acre property in Pico Rivera for outdoor industrial storage. The property at 8226 Whittier Blvd. includes roughly 31K SF of warehouse space and a secured storage yard. CapRock didn't disclose the terms of the sale or the identity of the seller, though property records indicate that ownership was an entity linked to the Pompeian olive oil company. 

Southland CRE’s Mark Repstad and Carla Chen represented CapRock and will market and lease the property’s available space.

LEASES

Wood Investments Cos. leased the former Tower Records in downtown Brea, a 30K SF building, to UFC Gym, which is expected to open in the third quarter of this year.

UFC Gym is the first major brand extension of UFC, a mixed martial arts organization. The gym has 160 locations with another 1,000 in development worldwide, according to a release from Wood Investments. 

Jim Manarino and Tracey Zimmerman of Manarino & Associates represented Wood Investments in the purchase of the Tower Records in March 2022 and in the lease transaction.

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Wholesale insurance brokerage firm Brown & Riding Insurance Services Inc. signed a 10-year, 13K SF office lease at Silverstein Properties’ U.S. Bank Tower. The firm will move into its space on the 20th floor in early 2024 from its previous office at 777 South Figueroa St. Silverstein Properties’ Harlan Strader and JLL’s Jaclyn Ward, James Malone and Sarah Hancock represented the landlord in the deal. David Kluth and Aliya Coher of Newmark represented Brown & Riding.

FINANCING

Weingart Center and Related Cos. received $30M in financing from the California Municipal Finance Authority to build an 18-story building with 298 affordable units and four manager units over 10K SF of commercial space and on-site supportive services, Urbanize LA reported. The project will also include the construction of a four-story parking garage with spaces for 212 vehicles to serve the Weingart Center across the street from the project.