San Diego-based HP investors acquired the Edgewater Park Plaza office complex from local investment firm California Capital and Investment Group for $35.7 million, or $172 per square foot.
The sale was the largest in the Oakland metropolitan area, which stretches from Oakland to San Leandro, according to a new third-quarter report by Colliers.
Edgewater is located across the street from the Oakland Coliseum and Arena, and a seven-minute drive from the Oakland Airport. The complex has 207,773 square feet and was previously purchased by California Capital in 2019 for $5.7 million, according to public records. The two story building was built in 1976 and sits on 10.6 acres of land.
The deal was an outlier in the market since it was the only transaction of a building over 10,000 square feet in the quarter, according to the report. The Oakland vacancy rate increased from 14.4 percent to 15.6 percent. Colliers attributed this to lingering consequences of the pandemic, which has led to a slow return to offices. In another downtrend trend for the market, the average asking rate across all classes of office space decreased slightly by 5 cents per square foot to $4.45 per square foot per month.
Current trends indicate mixed prospects for the market going forward.
“A steady but slow increase in return-to-office figures and improving transit data going into downtown Oakland are potential signs of optimism,” the report said. “That said, there are market headwinds in increasing interest rates and equity market volatility.”
While Oakland didn’t see much activity last quarter, San Leandro has had some big leases with companies looking to secure space in the downtown area and by the Oakland airport, which is a 10-minute drive from the city. The sports apparel company Ariat International secured 80,643 square feet at the San Leandro Tech Campus. Terreno Realty recently paid $35 million for a 104,000-square-foot property near the airport. And B3 Commercial Management and GAWCapital Partners are planning on redeveloping a recently acquired San Leandro shopping center into a life science campus.