Madison Partners Wins Yahoo Center Leasing

SANTA MONICA, CA-Blackstone has named Los Angeles-based Madison Partners as the leasing agent for the six-building, one-million-sf Yahoo Center on Broadway, the second major leasing assignment that Madison Partners has landed from Blackstone in recent weeks. The class A office and retail project, where Yahoo occupies 256,000 sf, is situated on 15 acres along the 2500 block of Broadway and the 2400 block of Colorado Ave.

Principals Rick Buckley and Chris Houge will lead the Madison Partners leasing team for the Yahoo Center, which formerly was known as the Colorado Center and was renamed when Yahoo signed a long-term lease for its space there. Blackstone/EOP and TIAA-CREF are equal partners in the property, which is an open-air campus with a 3.5-acre park including basketball, tennis and racquetball courts, a playground and a reflecting pond.

The Yahoo Center assignment follows a leasing assignment for nearly 1.6 million sf of class A office space at four Westwood office towers that Madison Partners won recently from Blackstone. Besides that 1.6 million sf, the Los Angeles-based investment sales and brokerage firm also is the leasing agent for Blackstone’s 1.2-million-sf Howard Hughes Center.

At the time that Madison won the 1.6-million-sf assignment, principal Hunt Barnett told GlobeSt.com that Blackstone is counting on its buildings in Westside L.A. markets to produce significant rent growth because of their position in one of the country’s strongest office markets with some of the highest barriers to entry. The Westside office market today enjoys “the highest rates and lowest vacancies I’ve seen in my career,” commented Barnett, a 25-year veteran of the industry.