Arden Sells 5M-SF Portfolio for Nearly $2B

LOS ANGELES-Arden Realty, which has been acquiring and disposing of properties in a big way since the former public REIT became a holding of GE Real Estate, has agreed to sell a portfolio of office properties totaling 4.6 million sf to a unit of Mexico’s Gisca for $1.5 billion. Officials of Arden and Gisca could not be reached for comment on the deal, but information gathered by New York City-based Real Capital Analytics indicates that Arden and the local Gisca unit, called Cabi West, are under contract for the portfolio sale.

Arden execs talked about the prospect of such a deal recently in a feature article in Real Estate Southern California Magazine, a sister publication of GlobeSt.com. Arden said at the time that the portfolio being marketed totaled 33 properties; the Real Capital Analytics data indicates 34 properties.

Arden placed the properties on the market as part of a capital recycling program that the company has been pursuing for months now, in which the Los Angeles-based office landlord has been disposing of non-core assets and buying in markets where it previously owned few or no assets. According to Robert Peddicord, Arden’s chief operating officer, the properties are non-core assets that have served their purpose in the Arden portfolio since the company acquired them in 1996 and 1997.

The other side of the Arden strategy is acquisitions. When Arden closed one of its first big transactions under the new plan, a $162 million portfolio buy late last year, company president and CEDO Joaquin De Monet told GlobeSt.com that the deal marked the beginning of an expansion by Arden that would take the company beyond its traditional Southern California roots to new markets in Northern California, the Pacific Northwest and Arizona.

Arden’s acquisition of the $162 million portfolio occurred almost simultaneously with the company’s sale of a $187-million portfolio of Southern California office properties and at about the same time as a $150 million acquisition. De Monet has said that the company expects to show a net gain of holdings when all of its dispositions and acquisitions are tallied, but he said in the magazine feature that for the first year, “A wash is acceptable.”

Arden’s portfolio before the sale to Cabi West portfolio consisted of 97 properties totaling 13.8 million sf, according to the company’s web site. Among the buildings being sold in the portfolio deal, which is expected to close in July, is the 243,000-sf Century Park Center at 9911 W. Pico Blvd. in West Los Angeles.