Maguire Agrees to $185M Buy

SORRENTO MESA, CA-The big get bigger. Los Angeles’ largest owner and operator of class A office space continues to grow its portfolio outside of L.A.’s CBD. In Maguire Properties Inc.’s latest major acquisition, the Los Angeles-based REIT has agreed to pay $185 million for San Diego Tech Center, a 38-acre Sorrento Mesa office campus. On March 3, Maguire made a non-refundable deposit of $5 million. The acquisition is expected to finalize by April 4. Maguire will acquire the 11-building, 647,000-sf complex from Rreef, paying some $286 per sf for the existing property plus land that’s been approved for an additional 1.2 million sf of development.Maguire officials were unavailable for comment, but in a released statement, Robert F. Maguire III, chairman and co-CEO of Maguire Properties says, “This acquisition is an ideal next step in continuing our expansion into San Diego and fits our strategy perfectly. We successfully implemented a similar strategy in Orange County through the acquisitions of Park Place, the Washington Mutual Campus and Pacific Arts Plaza, which is part of our recently announced acquisition of the CommonWealth Portfolio.” The San Diego Tech Center campus is 92% leased and among its major tenants are Sony Computer Entertainment, Qualcomm, and Broadcom Corp. Also on the property are a private athletic club, a Karl Strauss Restaurant and Brewery and a five-acre Japanese Garden. Entitlements for phase II call for three mid-rise buildings ranging in size from 154,000 sf on seven floors to 330,000 sf on 11 floors. “We are excited about the prospects of this acquisition as it gives us predominant market share in a high growth market and the potential of strong rent growth,” Maguire says in a released statement. The addition of San Diego Tech Center gives Maguire 1.4 million sf of office space in the Greater San Diego area. With full build-out of the campus, Maguire would become one of the area’s largest property owners.This latest deal comes on the heels of news earlier this year when Maguire’s agreed to pay $1.5 billion to a partnership of CommonWealth Partners LLC, Rockefeller Group International Inc and the California Public Employees Retirement System for 10 properties totaling five million sf in Southern California, Colorado, Texas and Arizona. Locally, properties from that buy included three buildings in central San Diego–Waterridge Plaza, Mission City Corporate Center and Regents Square.