Orion Office REIT Buys R&D Building in San Ramon for $35M

Orion Office REIT has scooped up a 96,900-square-foot research building in San Ramon for $34.6 million.

The Phoenix-based real estate investment trust led by Paul McDowell bought the two-story building at 4600 Norris Canyon Road, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The seller was an affiliate of Global Securitization Services, based in New York. The deal works out to $357 per square foot.

Global Securitization Services bought the property in 2019 for $37.25 million, or $384 per square foot. That’s more than double the price for a recent office campus sale in San Mateo or another in San Jose, which both sold in the $160 to $170 per square foot range.

The flex building, built in 1984 on nearly 6 acres, was revamped two years ago, according to LoopNet. According to previous reporting by the Business Times, one company leased the entire building in 2018. Valent USA, an agricultural crop protection company, signed a lease for the property. Valent has a subsidiary named Valent Biosciences.

R&D buildings in the Tri-Valley were 15 percent vacant in the second quarter ending in June, according to CBRE. At the same time, the vacancy in San Ramon was 23.2 percent.

The publicly traded Orion Office REIT, founded in 2021 as a spin-off from Realty Income, focuses on single-tenant office properties across the U.S.

The REIT’s office portfolio includes 81 office properties with a combined 9.5 million square feet in 29 states.

— Dana Bartholomew