Blackstone sells Cerritos office building for $44M

Blackstone Group has sold a 171,000-square-foot office building in the sprawling Cerritos Towne Center mixed-use development.

Blackstone sold the property for $44 million, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. Bay Area firm Nome Ventures was the buyer, and the deal penciled out to $257 a foot.

Called the Cerritos Center Court, it is located at 1777 Center Court Drive and was 98 percent leased at the time of the sale. The complex was built in 2002 and was renovated in 2018.

The city of Cerritos maintains ownership of the land beneath the building, and there are 66 years remaining on the ground lease, according to the report.

Blackstone has bought and sold a number of Los Angeles office properties in recent years. At a second-quarter conference call last week, company president Jon Gray acknowledged the coronavirus would lead to less density in the office sector, but that tenants would return “over time.” The world’s largest commercial landlord deployed $5.9 billion into real estate in the second quarter.

Cerritos Center Court is located within the 125-acre Cerritos Towne Center development, which includes other office buildings, a hotel, a performing arts center, and retail space.

Properties in the complex have traded hands in recent years. In 2018, West Coast Capital Partners bought a smaller office building there for $24 million, or $229 per square foot. Cress Capital bought five office buildings nearby later that year.

CBRE represented Blackstone in the sale and Nome represented itself. CBRE’s Greg Gant brokered a $26.7 million acquisition loan for the firm. [LABJ] — Dennis Lynch