Drawbridge Inks Purchase, Lease Deals at Hive in Costa Mesa

Drawbridge Realty just made some notable moves at a three-building office campus in Orange County.

The San Francisco-based firm just closed on the acquisition of The Hive office complex in Costa Mesa for $77.9 million, Commercial Observer reported. Invesco Real Estate was the seller of the 14-acre property at 3333-3337 Susan Street, which includes 3 acres of undeveloped land. Invesco previously paid $84 million for the site in 2018.

The same day it closed its purchase of the property, Drawbridge signed a new tenant to lease the entire office campus. Defense contractor Anduril Industries–founded by Palmer Luckey, who also founded Oculus VR and sold it to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014–will be moving into the site after inking a deal for the entirety of the 190,000-square-foot office campus.

In “secur[ing] a lease with a strong tenant,” Drawbridge is focusing on its “long-term investment strategy,” company CEO Charlie McEachron said in a statement.

The Hive was built in 2003 and features three two-story buildings, a community courtyard with espresso bar and outdoor lounge, indoor and outdoor conference and workspaces and a fitness center. The offices are minutes away from landmarks like South Coast Plaza and Metro Pointe at South Coast malls and John Wayne Airport.

Earlier this year, the Costa Mesa City Council considered a proposal from Bay Area-based multifamily developer Legacy to demolish the existing office buildings at The Hive to make way for a new mixed-use development. The project, dubbed Hive Live, would feature 1,050 units of housing, including at least 105 low-income units, as well as 335,958 square feet of open space and 3,692 square feet of retail.

Anduril, founded in 2017, has been in a growth spurt in recent years. In 2022, the company moved into a 640,000-square-foot headquarters building at The Press, the former printing facility of the Los Angeles Times, at 1375 Sunflower Avenue. That building is next door to The Hive in Costa Mesa. In the past few months alone, Anduril also leased a 163,000-square-foot industrial space in Santa Ana and a nearly 42,000-square-foot office lease in Costa Mesa; the Costa Mesa space is also next to its headquarters.

— Chris Malone Méndez