NEWPORT BEACH, CA-A fund managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management has purchased Newport Plaza, a 107,472-square-foot, class-A office building here, for an undisclosed amount from Equity Office. The building was purchased free and clear of existing debt.
Located at 895 Dove St., just south of Orange County's John Wayne Airport, the building serves as the headquarters for Newmeyer & Dillion LLP. Built in 2000, the asset is institutionally maintained and is 98% leased.
HFF marketed the property on behalf of the seller. The investment-sales team at HFF was led by senior managing directors Ryan Gallagher and Richard Plummer, managing director Mike McCann and director Tim Geiman. John Weiner, Jeff Morgan and Dean Chandler of CBRE acted as the local market leasing brokers on the sale.
While HFF was unable to disclose the sale price to GlobeSt.com, industry sources report that the property had been sold by Morgan Stanley to Blackstone in January 2012 for $32.9 million as a mezzanine takeover and as part of a 17-property portfolio. Morgan Stanley had decided to turn the properties over to Blackstone/EOP, which owned $225 million in mezzanine, rather than repay $820 million total debt upon maturity in December 2011.
The transaction comes at a time when office trades in Orange County are few and far between. As GlobeSt.com reported last week, sluggish office-investment metrics in Orange County do not reflect lack of appetite from buyers, but reluctance on the part of sellers to part with their assets, reports Voit Real Estate Services. The market has not approached the liquidity it enjoyed form 2003 through 2007 in dollar terms, and this liquidity may not return any time soon, according to the firm.
Also as GlobeSt.com had previously reported, Newmeyer & Dillion LLP's new Las Vegas office allows the firm to be a local asset to both existing and new clients who conduct business in the Las Vegas market, partner Nathan Owens told GlobeSt.com. As we reported earlier, the locally based business and real estate law firm has opened a new office in the Hughes Center, a 68-acre business complex in central Las Vegas, to serve its growing Nevada clientele, with Owens at the helm.
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
