Ocean West Shows Confidence in Long Beach

LOS ANGELES—Ocean West Capital Partners has partnered with Singerman Real Estate to purchase 100 West Broadway Avenue, a 210,281-square-foot office property in Long Beach, for $35.2 million from Adler Realty Investments. The two-tower, six-story property is 70% leased and the investors plan to execute a repositioning strategy to attract creative or "innovative" office users.

There have been a handful of office investors that have invested in the Long Beach market recently, and Russ Allegrette, a principal at Ocean West Capital Partners says that they see strong office potential. "We like Long Beach as an emerging office market," he tells GlobeSt.com. "There has been a significant amount of residential development and there has been an expansion of retail in Downtown Long Beach. We also really liked this property. It is dead center in all of the development that is happening and it is located near the best retail amenities in Downtown Long Beach, so from a location standpoint, we like it a lot."

The firm plans to invest several million dollars into property renovations, although Allegrette would not disclose the exact budget. "Our plan with the property is to invest a significant amount of money into the building and create the preeminent creative office building in Downtown Long Beach. We think that this building has all of the bones to become a really strong creative office asset," says Allegrette. "We don't necessarily have to have the technology tenants or the entertainment tenants like you see in West L.A. for the space to be interesting. We are trying to offer something that is not currently available in Long Beach." Allegrette lists the building's large operable windows, a large outdoor courtyard, onsite parking and flexible floor plates as some of the characteristics that will help attract tenants. The property is currently leased to City of Long Beach, Echo Global and Mental Health Association of America.

The company will hold for the mid-term, after the renovations and through stabilization. "Down the road we will sell it, but I don't know how long that will be," says Allegrette. "We won't hold it forever. At this point in time, we are focused on changing the property and physically leasing the property up."

CBRE vice chairman Kevin Shannon, along with Brad Burton and Ken White, represented the seller in the transaction.