Joel Schreiber’s Waterbridge Capital has sold the 40-story Union Bank Plaza building in Downtown Los Angeles for a discounted $80 million — as a Miami Beach firm hounds him for legal judgments of nearly $90 million.
The New York-based investor traded the 701,900-square-foot tower at 445 South Figueroa Street, the Commercial Observer reported. The buyer was Southwest Carpenters Pension Trust, a locally based union pension fund.
The deal works out to $114 per square foot, a new low price reset for offices in Downtown.
Waterbridge bought the building in March last year for $110 million, or $158 per square foot — a steep discount from the $208 million paid in 2010 by seller KBS, based in Newport Beach.
The Waterbridge purchase was later offset when it received a “large lease termination payout” of an undisclosed sum from Union Bank, the tower’s namesake tenant, according to Newmark, which brokered both Schreiber’s purchase and sale.
It took a small army of brokers — Kevin Shannon, Ken White, Rob Hannan, Laura Stumm, Michael Moll, Bill Bloodgood, Chris Benton, Anthony Muhlstein and Jonathan Firestone — to do the latest deal. The carpenter’s union made the purchase through Washington Capital Management, the Seattle-based firm that manages its pension investments.
The carpenter’s pension trust will occupy a “significant portion” of the building, effectively fixing its long-term operating costs, according to Shannon of Newmark.
“This was a win-win transaction for the buyer and seller,” Shannon said in a statement. “The buyer acquired an institutionally renovated office tower at approximately $100 per square foot, factoring in the value of the substantial adjacent development parcel that provides future upside potential.”
According to a Bisnow report, Shannon said Waterbridge saw a “substantial return” on its investment in the building because of the lease termination, despite a negative difference of $30 million between its buying and selling prices.
It’s not clear whether Schreiber, famous in New York as the first investor in WeWork, will use the proceeds from the Union Bank building sale to pay his debts.
Starwood Capital in Miami has been unable to collect a dollar from the New York investor since a New York State court awarded two judgments in Starwood’s favor in 2022 and last year for a combined $88 million.
The judgments stem from Schreiber’s defaults on $254 million in loans Starwood provided him for the Broadway Trade Center, in Downtown L.A. Schreiber signed personal guarantees on the loans, allowing Starwood to pursue him.
In August, a Starwood affiliate asked the court to hold Schreiber in contempt. It also requested the court impose sanctions, including potential jail time, for failing to comply with subpoenas and court orders to hand over documents.
— Dana Bartholomew
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