Artisan Partners nearing purchase of Lantana campus in Santa Monica for $400M

Two Tishman Speyer alumni are striking it out on their own, and they aren’t starting small.

Artisan Partners, led by former Tishman execs Mark Laderman and Collin Komae, is in contract to buy the four-building Lantana office campus in Santa Monica for roughly $400 million, The Real Deal has learned. Artisan’s partner on the deal is Brightstone Capital Group on behalf of an investor, sources said.

The seller, Atlanta-based Jamestown, will rake in $825 per square foot on the sale of the 484,840-square-foot campus with buildings at 2900 and 3000 West Olympic, as well as 3003 and 3301 Exposition Boulevards. The deal is among the largest in a flurry of major Westside office trades, including Minskoff Equities’ pending purchase of the Bluffs at Playa Vista for a price in the $400 million ballpark, or roughly $800 a square foot.

Artisan, Brightstone and Jamestown could not be reached for comment, but sources said the buyers plan to renovate the Olympic side of the campus, which is home to Mark Burnett Productions, One Three Television, and a slew of other entertainment firms. The two buildings on the Exposition side are fully leased to multi-level marketing firm Beachbody, the maker of P90X. The firm’s headquarters span 200,000 square feet on Exposition boulevard. CoStar shows all four buildings as fully leased, but sources said there is a small percentage of vacancy on the Olympic side.

Stephen Somer of Eastdil Secured brokered the deal, but declined to comment. It was first marketed by Eastdil in late 2015, but it didn’t sell. The campus was never officially placed back on the market, and the buyers made an offer on the property without an asking price, sources said.

Jamestown will see a significant profit on Lantana, which it purchased in 2013 for $328.4 million, or $681 a square foot, from Houston-based Lionstone Investments.

Major office properties have been trading with regularity on the Westside. Boston Properties acquired a 50 percent stake in Santa Monica’s Colorado Center for $513 million, or roughly $911 a square foot, in a deal that closed in June. Over the summer, a fund managed by Houston-based Hines sold a 19-story office tower at 12100 Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica-based REIT Douglas Emmett for $225 million, or close to $616 per square foot. 

This will be Artisan’s first major acquisition. Laderman and Komae co-founded the firm earlier this year, after resigning from Tishman.