Graymark, Nuveen pay $97M for El Segundo creative office

Nuveen Real Estate and Graymark Capital partnered to pay $97.2 million for a creative office building in El Segundo, a fast-growing hub for technology, entertainment and media companies.

The seller was a joint venture of El Segundo-based North Sea Capital Advisors and Boston-based AEW Capital Management. The deal for the 201,000-square-foot office building at 101 Pacific Coast Highway pencils out to $483 per square foot.

The complex is 91 percent leased to four tenants, with semiconductor manufacturer Infineon occupying nearly two-thirds of the building for its U.S. headquarters. Web hosting company DTI Services is also a major tenant.

Kevin Shannon’s team at Newmark Knight Frank represented the seller and announced the deal. NKF’s Eric Lastition and Geoff Ludwig handle leasing at the property.

Graymark, a San Francisco-based real estate investor and Nuveen, a unit of New York-based financial services company TIAA, were self-represented.

Over the past three years, North Sea Capital and AEW Capital spent nearly $20 million to renovate the 2.9-acre campus.

El Segundo, once known for its aerospace industry, has in recent years become a magnet for media and tech firms searching for a lower-cost alternative to Silicon Beach markets like Venice and Playa Vista.

In September, GPI Companies acquired a manufacturing complex leased by toymaker Mattel, less than a month after it closed a $300 million commitment for its real estate fund from a state pension fund.

The Nuveen-Graymark acquisition is also near where Continental Development Corp. recently began redeveloping several of its properties in the massive Continental Park, turning them into creative office spaces. That 3 million-square-foot campus is comprised of low- to mid-rise retail, restaurant, hotel and entertainment properties spread across 86 acres.