Essex, Alamo Assemble Two Acres for $20M

WALNUT CREEK, CA-A two-acre site on the south side of the Downtown core here has been assembled by a partnership of area developer Alamo Group and the apartment REIT Essex Property Trust of Palo Alto. The duo paid approximately $20.1 million for the site, which abuts the city’s namesake creek, across Newell Avenue from Kaiser Permanente’s local campus.

The partnership most recently acquired 1500 Newell Ave., the larger of the two sits that comprise the assemblage. The 1.3-acre site holds an eight-story, 51,343-sf office building and fronts both Newell Avenue and South Main Street. The smaller site, 0.62 acres, holds a retail strip center that fronts South Main and backs up to the creek.

The office building was sold by Sean Cooley, Mike Zylstra and Forrest Gherlone of Cornish & Carey Commercial’s local office on behalf of Shaw Foundation Properties Corp., a Hong Kong-based charitable trust. The trust had owned the building since 1972, a couple of years after its completion.