Arden Project Sells For Nearly $53M

Brigitta Troy, SVP of acquisitions and dispositions at locally based Arden, tells GlobeSt.com that Univision had an option to buy the 5999 Center Dr. building, which Arden developed as a build-to-suit for lease for Univision Television Group in 2000. The sale was a direct deal between buyer and seller. Univision was a tenant in a different building at Howard Hughes Center before Arden acquired the property, then later struck the deal to have the 5999 building custom-built by Arden.

Univision occupies the entire 161,650 sf at 5999 Center Dr., which is one of six office buildings at the 70-acre Howard Hughes Center, a combination office and retail development about two miles north of Los Angeles International Airport and immediately adjacent to the San Diego Freeway (I-405) Freeway. The center also includes a medical building, a sports club, and a 250,000-sf entertainment retail center that locally based JH Snyder Co. developed on land purchased from Arden.

Arden is the largest publicly traded office landlord in Southern California, with 128 properties, consisting of 210 buildings and approximately 18.6 million net rentable sf of office space. The company was a net seller of office space in 2003, disposing of 597,000 sf, with 222,000 sf of that in Los Angeles County. The locally based REIT bought only 101,000 sf in 2003, none of it in the county. This year, however, Arden could turn out to be a net buyer. Howard Stern, chief investment officer for the REIT, told GlobeSt.com earlier this year that the company would like to buy at least $150 million worth of office buildings in 2004.