Maguire Closes on $149M Pacific Center

SAN DIEGO-Los Angles-based REIT Maguire Properties Inc. extends its stronghold as the Southland’s leading office owner with another major purchase, this time in the Mission Valley submarket of San Diego County.In the latest acquisition, Maguire paid $149 million, or about $337/sf for Pacific Center. Located at 1455 Frazee Rd. and 1615 Murray Canyon Rd. the site counts two 10-story office buildings, totaling 441,237 sf.Maguire acquired the property from DRA Advisors, a New York investment manager. The site includes an adjacent six-story parking garage with 1,421 parking spaces. The property was 84% leased at the time of sale, with major tenants including ProgressiveCasualty Insurance, Preferred Employers Insurance and Countrywide Home Loan, the California Attorney General’s Office and URS Corp.DRA Advisors acquired the property in 2002 from Maier, Sieble, Baber, a San Francisco unit of Charles Schwab for nearly $85.8 million. The two buildings were developed in 1986 and 1988 and were renovated in 2002.For Maguire, the firm remains bullish on its San Diego County investments. In a recent SEC filing, the REIT revealed that during “the fourth quarter it was continuing pre-development activities at San Diego Tech Center, Lantana Media Campus and Mission City Corporate Center.”Also, in January, Maguire closed its $1-billion joint venture with Australia’s Macquarie Office Trust, realizing net proceeds of $350 million that Maguire will use to pay down debt and to acquire additional properties. As previously reported on Globest.com, “that deal improves Maguire’s balance sheet by getting debt off the books and bringing in cash.”At the time, Rob Maguire, chairman and CEO of the REIT, said the two companies plan to substantially expand the size of the JV’s portfolio, which consists of four million sf of primarily Southern California assets. Among those properties is San Diego Tech Center, an 11-building, 647,000-sf complex it acquired last April from Rreef, for some $185 million. The project has been approved for an additional 1.2 million sf of development.