Northwestern Mutual picks up Santa Monica office campus for $166M

Four-building complex leased to Universal Music Group & Illumination Entertainment

Colorado Campus at 2041-2115 Colorado Avenue and Northwestern Mutual CEO John E. Schlifske
Colorado Campus at 2041-2115 Colorado Avenue and Northwestern Mutual CEO John E. Schlifske

Northwestern Mutual is expanding its California office portfolio with a four-building complex in Santa Monica, The Real Deal has learned.

The insurance and investment firm is paying $166 million for the Colorado Campus at 2041-2115 Colorado Avenue, according to a source familiar with the deal. Eastdil Secured brokered the transaction.

Lincoln Property Company and Northwood Investors converted the industrial buildings on the two-acre site into creative office space in 2018, and the 92,000-square-foot campus is now fully leased to two tenants: Universal Music Group and Illumination, the animation studio behind films like “Despicable Me” and “Minions.”

The complex is located across the street from UMG’s corporate headquarters at 2220 Colorado Avenue, and a block away from Boston Properties’ Colorado Center.

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Eastdil declined to comment. The buyer and sellers did not respond to requests for comment.

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Northwestern Mutual’s real estate portfolio includes commercial mortgage and equity investments across the country. In southern California, the firm has been active in the industrial space, buying a $214 million warehouse in the Inland Empire in 2019, and selling a $129 million industrial park in Orange County a few months later.

Elsewhere in California, Northwestern acquired a three-building, 115,000-square-foot office building known as Castro Station in Silicon Valley in 2018, in a joint venture with McCarthy Cook & Co. The insurers’ financial statements value that property at $189 million.