Maguire Talking to Possible Park Place Buyer

LOS ANGELES-Maguire Properties has narrowed the list of prospective buyers of its 105-acre, 2.3-million-sf Park Place office campus in Orange County to one, president and CEO Nelson Rising said during the L.A.-based office REIT’s earnings conference call Tuesday. When questioned by analysts Rising declined to name the potential buyer or to say what the likely price will be for the mixed-use campus in Irvine, but he described the bidder as “very qualified” and said that the REIT had narrowed the field of bidders to one after receiving a number of offers, including three that were “superior.”

The potential sale of the Park Place property is part of a strategy that Maguire Properties has been pursuing to shed all of its Orange County assets to improve its finances. In addition to negotiations for the sale of Park Place, Maguire is in discussions to sell a number of other Orange County assets and has entered into a nonbinding letter of intent for one building in the Orange County Airport market, Rising noted in the conference call.

In his introduction to the conference call, Rising also touched on the company’s refinancings and other efforts to improve its financial position, and he noted that the company has fielded many questions regarding its potential exposure from tenants in the financial service and insurance industries. The REIT’s three largest banking tenants are Wells Fargo with almost 400,000 sf, Bank of America with 190,000 sf and US Bank with 162,000 sf—all of which “have weathered the financial storm quite well,” the Maguire CEO said.