Maguire Starts 270,000-SF Office-Retail Project

PASADENA, CA-Los Angeles-based developer Maguire Partners is scheduled to break ground today on the $42 million, 270,000-sf second phase of its Plaza Las Fuentes office and retail project.

The new development will be on a 2.44-acre site along the north side of Colorado Boulevard between Los Robles Avenue and Euclid Avenue, about a mile south of the 210 Freeway and two miles east of the 110 Freeway.

This second phase of the Plaza Las Fuentes development will be called Western Asset Plaza, named for Western Asset Management Co., the anchor tenant for the office portion of the development. Western, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Baltimore-based Legg Mason financial services company, has signed a 10-year lease for more than 155,000 sf of the new space. Western, which already has offices in Pasadena, will expand its operations with the move into the new development.

Western Asset Plaza will be a Class A office and retail building with a three-level underground parking garage of 770 spaces.The development will include several balconies that will directly overlook the Rose Bowl parade route, plus ground floor retail and restaurant space, and a design that is intended to link the business districts of Pasadena, Old Pasadena and the city’s Playhouse District. The project’s architects are Moore Ruble Yudell Design Architects of Santa Monica and HKS Architects Inc. of Los Angeles, with Webcor Construction of San Francisco as the general contractor.

The new project is being financed in part by a $15.7 million mezzanine loan from Glendale, Calif.-based American Realty Advisors, an institutional real estate investment manager. The borrowing entity was Maguire Partners-385 Colorado LLC, according to Stanley Iezman, American’s president and CEO. Iezman says the loan investment was made on behalf of one of American’s institutional closed-end commingled funds, the Building for America High Yield Union Investment Fund II.

Construction of the new development is due to be finished in 2004, according to Robert F. Maguire III, managing partner of Maguire Partners.