While January didn’t see deals as large as December, a lot of office space traded hands nonetheless.
The top five sales of the first month of 2019 totaled just under $250 million. The month saw big plays by a handful of national players, including Brookfield and Blackstone.
The top two deals were both in the San Fernando Valley. The largest deal in terms of price and square footage was an office campus in Canoga Park, north of Warner Center and near the edge of Los Angeles County. The second-largest of the month was in Santa Clarita.
1. Corporate Pointe at West Hills, Canoga Park | $163M
Fairfax Financial’s purchase of this suburban office complex on the edge of L.A. County topped all other sales in January combined, which isn’t surprising given its size. The 10-building campus sits on 80 acres and has around 1 million square feet of rentable office space.
Fairfax, based in Toronto, purchased the complex from another Toronto-based company, real estate titan Brookfield Property Partners. Brookfield paid $86 million for the complex in 2013.
2. 27200 Tourney Road, Santa Clarita | $42M
Blackstone unloaded two properties last month for a total of $113.6 million. One of them was this business park in Santa Clarita’s Valencia neighborhood. The buyer was an entity tied to Alex Ghassemieh of the West Hollywood-based family firm Atlantic Pearl Investments, the developer of the Mr. C Beverly Hills.
The sale of the 212,800 property pencils out to around $533 per square foot. It was built in 1983.
3. 1302 6th Street, Santa Monica | $18.4M
Tooley Investment Company, a Santa Monica firm, paid around $1,219 per square foot for this office complex near downtown Santa Monica. The building dates from 1978. The sellers were Lionel Ruhman and Elza Ruhman, a couple living in Pacific Palisades.
Co-working companies have been steadily gobbling up Santa Monica office space. Knotel, a rival of WeWork, is the latest to plant a flag in the seaside city, leasing 12,388 square feet at 429 Santa Monica Boulevard, a couple blocks away from Tooley’s new office property.
4. 1215 E. Main Street, Alhambra | $14.8M
Alabama-based developer B2 Partners quickly sold this medical office property to Jinbo Holdings LLC shortly after completing it and leasing it to dialysis giant DaVita, Inc. for a 15-year term. The developer purchased the 1.2-acre property in 2016 for $5.5 million.
Jinbo Holdings LLC is run by a local family, according to the broker who represented them, Grady Liu of MacroReal Commercial. DaVita is a Fortune 500 company with 2,400 dialysis clinic locations around the country, including nearly 400 in California.
5. 11532 San Vicente Boulevard, Brentwood | $9.5M
This low-rise office building spans about 9,000 square feet and was purchased by the Shekar Family Trust for about $1,048 per square foot. The seller was Moise Emquies, a fashion designer, and Carol Emquies, an interior designer. They purchased the building for $4 million in 2012 via an LLC . The building dates from the 1960s.