TUSTIN, CA—Harbor Associates has acquired Tustin Commons, a 210,875 square foot, three building, office and flex portfolio in a joint venture with Stockbridge Capital Group.

Harbor plans to reposition the 211,000 square-foot Tustin Commons property as Create Tustin.

Harbor sourced the asset in an off-market transaction by capitalizing on its local knowledge that the previous tenant was vacating the entire campus in Q2 2016 and was able to secure a 20,000 square foot, multi-billion-dollar tenant in tow during escrow.

Harbor also owns the 40,000 square foot Bespoke Tustin property across the street from Tustin Commons. The portfolio marks the fifth value-add office acquisition for Harbor in the last fourteen months and expands the firm's existing footprint in Orange County. John Collins and Gary McArdell of Lee & Associates Newport Beach represented the buyer and seller in the transaction. Greg Brown, John Chun and Jamie Kline of HFF arranged the financing for the project.

Harbor is planning to reposition and lease-up the asset through a comprehensive rebranding and renovation program that includes transforming the exterior of the buildings, upgrading lobbies and restrooms, and creating new indoor and outdoor amenity spaces for tenants to collaborate, dine and recreate. As part of the portfolio repositioning the project will be rebranded as Create Tustin – a nod to the history of innovation, design, and manufacturing from the former occupants of the campus.

Create Tustin benefits from its immediate access to Interstate 5 and the 261 toll road. The property is centrally located near amenities and mass transit including the 1.6 million square foot Tustin Marketplace outdoor mall, the 1.0 million square foot District lifestyle shopping center and the Tustin Amtrak/Metrolink station. The three building campus located is comprised of two office buildings located at 14101 Myford Rd. and 2642 Michelle Dr. and a flex building located at 14192 Franklin Ave.

The buy for Harbor is the firm's fifth recent acquisition, coming on the heels of Harbor's creative office purchase of Bespoke Tustin, 5280 Carroll Canyon in San Diego 71 At The Park in Lake Forest and Bespoke Irvine.

“Create Tustin represents our fifth value-add office acquisition in the last fourteen months and our fourth in Orange County,” said Paul Miszkowicz, principal for Harbor. “We intend on building on our recent momentum by sourcing new opportunities and pursuing similar strategies in high demand Southern California submarkets in order to meet our acquisition goal of $250M by year end 2017.”

Joon Choi, principal for Harbor, states, “We tapped into our contacts to execute this deal where we are doing repeat business with a credit tenant-in-tow, brokers that we've transacted with, and a relationship lender. The pre-leasing activity we are experiencing in this pocket of Tustin is very strong with several publicly traded companies looking for the creative workplaces that Harbor is delivering.”

Justin Loiacono, Principal for Harbor, adds, “We're continuing to find interesting opportunities in Southern California to invest in the value-add space through our deep network of brokerage relationships and off-market channels. We have a robust pipeline of activity behind this transaction.”

Harbor Associates, LLC is a value add operating platform focused on acquiring and re-positioning under-performing commercial real estate assets throughout Southern California. The three principals of Harbor have over 25 years of experience in Southern California and have closed over $1.7B in acquisitions and asset managed over $2.5B in assets totaling over 3M SF of office. The company is a joint venture with The Bascom Group.

TUSTIN, CA—Harbor Associates has acquired Tustin Commons, a 210,875 square foot, three building, office and flex portfolio in a joint venture with Stockbridge Capital Group.

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Harbor Closes Off-Market Three Building Portfolio

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