LBA Realty Buys Emeryville Offices at Deep Discount

A waterfront office tower in Emeryville just sold at a significant discount.

LBA Realty purchased the 2100 Powell Street building from CBRE Investment Management for $72.5 million, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The building rises 16 stories and contains 350,000 square feet of offices.

The approximately $200-per-square-foot sale price represents a 57.6 percent drop, or $98.4 million, from the $170.9 million that CBRE Investment Management paid for it in 2018. The seller in that $480-per-square-foot transaction was Blackstone Real Estate Partners.

CBRE made several investments in the property, adding amenities like an on-site concierge, a fitness center and high-tech meeting spaces. That, combined with a cross-bay view of the San Francisco skyline, made the Powell Street building an attractive asset in the local office market.

The building has brought in some notable biotech and health care tenants in recent years.

In 2018, cybersecurity company Tanium leased 65,000 square feet in the building to serve as its headquarters; it moved to Seattle two years later, though it still occupies its space in the Emeryville building.

Emeryville-founded protein bar company Clif Bar, meanwhile, is moving some of its workforce to the building, E’ville Eye reported. And in 2022, insurance company Canopy Health signed a lease for 13,000 square feet at the building.

The building has approximately 103,000 square feet available for lease.

LBA Realty has been largely absent from the East Bay real estate scene over the past decade. The Irvine-based firm used to own The Towers Emeryville, three office properties located near 2100 Powell Street. The company sold the buildings to real estate investment trust KBS in 2014 for $250 million — almost double the $130 million it paid for the 814,000-square-foot property in 2010.

LBA Realty bought the 600 Townsend Street building in San Francisco in 2023 for nearly $25.4 million, the Business Times reported. And last year, it scored the 255 California Street building at a value of $55 million. Both discount purchases, along with the latest in Emeryville, speak to the ongoing slow recovery of the broader Bay Area office market.

— Chris Malone Méndez