Wells Buys $25.6M Office Property

Wells bought the property, which is at 675 Placentia Ave., from Lend Lease Real Estate Investments. The building is 100% leased to two major tenants, the Continental Casualty Co. subsidiary of CNA Financial Corp., which leases 112,936 sf, and Phoenix American Insurance Group, a privately owned small service contract and mechanical breakdown insurance administrator.

David Steinwedell, chief investment officer for Wells, says the long-term lease with Continental Casualty makes the purchase especially attractive. Continental Parent CNA Financial is an insurance holding company that has been in business since 1967. Continental is rated A- (stable) and A3 (stable) by Standard & Poor's and Moody's, respectively. He notes that Fairway Center II offers access to places throughout Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties because it is near the Santa Ana (5), Orange (57), Costa Mesa (55), Corona del Mar (73), Riverside (91), Garden Grove (22) and San Diego (405) freeways.

The purchase of the Brea property is the second in Southern California in recent weeks for the Wells REIT, which last month bought the 176,000-sf Koll Pasadena Center at 1055 E. Colorado Blvd. in Downtown Pasadena from Dallas-based Koll Development Co. for $38 million. The purchases follow an announcement earlier this year by the Atlanta-based REIT that it plans to acquire single- and multi-tenant class A office and industrial Southland properties that have long-term leases with highly creditworthy tenants.

Wells closed its first major acquisition in Southern California in December when it paid $157 million for the Nestle Building in Glendale. The 545,000-sf class-A office tower is occupied entirely by Nestle USA and serves as the company's US headquarters.