School District Signs $25M Lease

Eric Duncanson of the downtown L.A. office of CBRE represented the Bristol Group in the 10-year deal, with LAUSD represented by Onno Zwaneveld of Trammell Crow Co. The school district's new space is a 33-story, 615,000-sf class A office building at the corner of Seventh and Bixel streets in a growing downtown residential district. It is close to the 1100 Wilshire and Medici condominium projects, adjacent to the Harbor Freeway.

The Los Angeles Unified School district is one of the nation's largest, with a K-12 student enrollment of more than 746,800. The district comprises 704 square miles, including the City of Los Angeles and all or part of 28 other cities, as well as some unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.

The West Seventh Street building is part of a Bristol Group national portfolio of more than 13 million sf of commercial properties and 4.2 million sf in pre-development. Its development projects include the 800,000-sf Los Angeles Center Studios entertainment campus in downtown L.A.

The LAUSD downtown deal is one of three office leases signed recently by the school district, according to Zwaneveld, who represented the district in all three leases. In the second deal, the district renewed and expanded for 10 years in 32,064 sf at 5200 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood, with Scott Murphy of Metropolitan Pacific Commercial Real Estate Services representing the landlord, Academy Office Investors LP and RSZ Academy LLC.

In a five-year lease renewal at 8550 Balboa Blvd. in Northridge , the school district signed for 29,116 sf at the Harman International Business Campus. The landlord, Northridge Business Center LLC, was represented by Richard Bright of CB Richard Ellis Investors.