Oxford Properties Buys Santa Clarita Innovation Park for $133M
The purchase markets the investor’s first direct acquisition in the Greater Los Angeles market.
Oxford Properties Group has made its first foray into the Los Angeles market. The firm has purchased the Santa Clarita Innovation Park for $133.5 million, its first direct acquisition in the market.
The Santa Clarita Innovation Park is a 14-building business park on more than 118 acres in Santa Clarita. The property is leased to a mix of industrial and life science tenants. Oxford is currently increasing its exposure to life science and industrial assets, and this purchase aligned nicely with that strategy. According to the firm’s EVP of North America Chad Remis, “Substantially growing our life sciences and industrial businesses represent our highest conviction investment strategies and top priorities at Oxford.” Along with residential—another target asset class—Oxford’s industrial and life science properties will account for 45% to 60% of its total portfolio by 2025.
Last month, Oxford purchased a 14.5 million-square-foot infill and light industrial portfolio from KKR for approximately $2.2 billion. The portfolio of 149 distribution buildings spans 12 major industrial US markets, including the Inland Empire, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, Houston, Tampa, Orlando, San Diego and the Baltimore Washington corridor. Similarly, the acquisition was part of Oxford’s strategy to target industrial and logistics properties, which has been ongoing for years. In January 2019, the company acquired IDI Logistics alongside Ivanhoe Cambridge for $3.5 billion. In 2020, it became a significant investor in the US.-based Lineage Logistics, a cold storage logistics provider.
The Santa Clarita Innovation Park also has the potential to create additional value. It has 40 acres of developable land, which Oxford plans to utilize. Although the company doesn’t have any concrete plans, it is looking at the best options to “enhance” the site. With flexible commercial zoning in place, there are a lot of options.
Oxford purchased the property from funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management and Intertex Companies. Newmark brokered the deal.