Pasadena Office Portfolio Trades for $80M
The three-building office portfolio totals 224,000 square feet and is located in Pasadena’s Central Business District.
An unnamed private buyer based in Los Angeles has acquired a three-building office portfolio in Pasadena for $80 million from a joint venture between private family office based in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. The three-building office portfolio totals 242,012 square feet and is located in Downtown Pasadena.
The property includes 2 N Lake Ave, an 11-story building built in 1985; 911 E Colorado Blvd., a three-story building built in 1927; and 902 Boston Ct., a small one-story building built in 1900. The properties also include a six-story parking garage. The buyer plans to reposition the properties into class-A quality buildings. The capital improvements will include new lobbies, activated outdoor areas and other interior and exterior upgrades to attract and retain office tenants.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Mike Condon Jr., Erica Finck, Bailey Dawson and Marc Renard represented the seller in the deal, along with assistance from Shaun Stiles, Steven Marcussen and Katie Cowan.
According to Stiles, “Pasadena is the Tri-Cities’ largest and most diverse submarket and, along with Burbank, has consistently achieved the highest rent rates in the market. And as a hub for tech has also seen great in-migration from new tenants within the last few years.”
The tech and entertainment industries have been a boon for the greater Los Angeles office market through the pandemic. Dubbed techtainment, the two industries have fueled leasing activity in the last year. BLT Enterprises, an owner of boutique office space in the market says that technology-driven entertainment companies are still actively leasing space. “With production in Hollywood and other areas of L.A. responsible for a significant amount of both direct and indirect employment, we anticipate creative office will thrive with demand from diverse tenants, as long as the major players remain in the market,” Bernard Huberman, founder and president of BLT Enterprises, tells GlobeSt.com.
However, the two industries aren’t enough to keep the office market from slipping in 2020. According to a new market report from Savills, office leasing totaled only 10 million square feet last year, the lowest in 20 years. Office leasing transactions were down 44% compared to 2019, when office leasing totaled 18 million square feet in the market.