Menlo Park Offices Sold by Four Corners Properties

Four Corners Properties has trimmed its Bay Area property portfolio with a nine-figure sale.

The Los Altos-based firm sold 1540 El Camino Real in Menlo Park in an off-market deal for $103.7 million, or approximately $2,272 per square foot, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported. The buyer’s identity for the 46,000-square-foot offices was not disclosed.

Joseph Moriarty of CBRE represented the seller and Ryan King and Justin Hale of King Realty represented the buyer. The sale price is a more than 350 percent jump from the $23 million figure that Four Corners paid for the property in 2022. Tenants include law firm Sheppard Mullin and investment firm Glynn Capital.

Four Corners offloaded the property to eliminate some financial risks among its holdings, founder Bruce Burkard told the Business Journal.

Four Corners also sold 298 South Sunnyvale Avenue in downtown Sunnyvale early last year for $11.5 million and restructured financing for two other properties, Burkard told the Business Journal. The properties that underwent restructuring, as well as the possible financial difficulties the company could face as a result of keeping them, were not disclosed.

Aside from selling the Menlo Park and Sunnyvale properties, Four Corners has been adding to its portfolio. The company recently closed its acquisition of Quantum Tech Park in San Jose for an undisclosed amount and is in the bidding process for various other sites, Burkard said.

The 1540 El Camino Real deal is the latest large sale in the Peninsula in recent months. Earlier this month, DivcoWest acquired 1991 Broadway in Redwood City for approximately $32 million, the Business Journal reported. In November, New York Life Insurance and Bridgeton Holdings bought 260 Sheridan Avenue in Palo Alto for $32 million.

San Mateo County saw an increase in companies leaving their offices in the fourth quarter, diminishing office landlords’ income, the Business Journal reported. Last quarter, the number of empty offices rose to 23.8 percent, and the availability of rentable office space dropped to 26 percent, per CBRE data cited by the Business Journal. The office vacancy rate was 18.6 percent, higher than the Silicon Valley office market’s 16 percent vacancy rate. — Chris Malone Méndez