Blackstone to list Santa Monica Business Park with Eastdil: sources

Santa Monica Business Park, Jonathan Gray (SMBP/Blackstone Group)
Santa Monica Business Park, Jonathan Gray (SMBP/Blackstone Group)

Blackstone Group plans to list Santa Monica Business Park, a whopping 1 million-square-foot office campus, later this year with Eastdil Secured, sources said. The plan to take bids for the 12-building property at 2850-3420 Ocean Park Boulevard was hatched soon after Snapchat’s parent company signed a lease to anchor the property.

Blackstone declined to comment. Eastdil’s brokers could not be reached.

Blackstone owns the ground lease for the 38.8-acre site, which it acquired in 2009 as part of its $39 billion leveraged buyout of Equity Office Properties. The land, however, is owned by an entity connected to Tom and Roberta Irish. Tom Irish manages the holdings of the Transpacific Development Company, which originally developed the office park, sources said.

The L.A. campus is one of several remaining EOP assets Blackstone plans to list. San Francisco’s landmark Ferry Building is expected to hit the market in coming weeks for more than $300 million, as is a 32-story office tower in Downtown Boston, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

The three properties make up most of the $2 billion of assets from the 2007 deal that remain to be sold, Gray told Bloomberg. With those sales, along with the disposition of smaller holdings, Blackstone expects to triple its equity investment, according to Bloomberg.

Snap Inc. signed a lease for about 300,000-square-feet at the complex earlier this year, but also cut a deal to add 100,000 square feet as other tenants leave, sources said. At the time of the January deal, Blackstone was asking $4.65 to $4.95 per square foot a month in rent, according to Costar.

Eastdil brokered the sale of several other Blackstone-owned trophies this year. It listed and sold the buildings at 1299 Ocean Avenue and 1999 Avenue of the Stars. Eastdil also arranged Douglas Emmett and Qatar Investment Authority’s $188 million purchase of 9665 Wilshire Boulevard, sources told The Real Deal last week.