Hearn Co. Acquires Office Tower for $112M

IRVINE, CA-The Chicago-based Hearn Co. has agreed to buy the 18301 Von Karman building, an 11-story, 230,605-sf office project, from Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties Inc. for $112 million in a sale that is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Hearn becomes the latest in a series of buyers to acquire Orange County assets that Maguire is disposing of to reduce debt from its from its $3-billion purchase of a portfolio of 8.1 million sf of Equity Office Trust properties from Blackstone.

The 18301 Von Karman building is one of the most visible office towers in the area, about two blocks from the John Wayne Airport in the Koll Center Irvine masterplanned business development. The class A office project includes a six-level parking structure with more than 770 spaces.

The sale of 18301 Von Karman follows deals of $310 million and $345 million in which locally based buyers acquired office buildings that Maguire disposed of previously as part of its plan to reduce debt from its acquisition of the EOP properties. In the $310-million deal, a joint venture of the Laguna Hills-based Muller Co. and Rockwood Capital LLC bought three class A Orange County office assets totaling more than 839,000 sf from Maguire Properties.

The three properties sold were the 10-story, 217,382-sf Tower 17 in Irvine; the 16-story, 384,183-sf 1100 Executive Tower in Orange and the 17-story, 237,659-sf Lincoln Town Center in Santa Ana.

In the $345-million deal, the Newport Beach-based Bixby Land Co. closed on 11 office buildings totaling 816,000 sf that it acquired from the Los Angeles-based REIT. Bixby, which bought the properties in a joint venture with the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust, also plans a new 100,000-sf office building on a development site in Irvine that was part of the deal with Maguire.

The Orange County assets that Maguire has disposed of were part of a group of 17 properties that Maguire said it would sell for approximately $2 billion to reduce debt from the Blackstone transaction. Besides Orange County assets, the 17 properties being sold included assets in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.