The Beverly Hills location of the Il Fornaio restaurant chain has sold for $30.8 million, The Real Deal has learned.
The 9,700-square-foot property at 303 North Beverly Drive fetched nearly $3,200 per square foot, a price that reflects its premium location just a block off Rodeo Drive and the preference of many investors for single-tenant buildings. It was previously on the market with an asking price of $35 million, according to a listing from LoopNet.
Terms of Il Fornaio’s lease in Beverly Hills–one of 18 locations for the chain–are not known.
The buyer is a partnership composed of four different California-based entities. Laha Beverly, LLC, which is managed by Anthony and Alexander Lahijani, holds a 40 percent majority stake in the partnership. The buyers are funding the purchase with a $16 million mortgage from First Republic Bank.
The seller is the MaryLee C. Reeder Living Trust, which is controlled by James Carmack Reeder and Patricia Reeder Eubank, property records show. It’s unclear when the Reeders bought the building. However, MaryLee Reeder has been a signatory for documents relating to the property dating back to at least 2000.
During the sales process, the Reeders entreated buyers with the prospect of expanding the property by developing an adjacent parking lot, the listing shows. The seller also pitched the possible conversion of the asset into a multi-tenant building.
Retail sales have recently picked up in Los Angeles, with many investors opting to move equity from 1031 exchanges to single-tenant properties, according to the latest market report from brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap. Over the past 12 months ending in March, the Los Angeles market registered a more than 40 percent increase in deal flow compared to the previous year.
This is partly due to a pickup in transactions for single-tenant properties, which reached a record level for the period. However, the trend has come with a decline in price for the segment. During the year, the price for single-tenant properties fell for the second straight year to an average of $560 per square foot.
Neither the buyers nor the sellers could be reached for comment.