LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Oxy Lofts

EAGLE ROCK, CA-The newly built Oxy Lofts condominiums at 4547-4555 Eagle Rock Blvd. have traded in a lender-assisted short sale in this week's roundup of commercial real estate news in the West. Marcus & Millichap executive vice president Ron Harris and associate director Paul Darrow in the company's Downtown L.A. office, who represented both the buyer and the seller, tell GlobeSt.com that the buyer paid $8.6 million in the all-cash transaction. Harris and Darrow point out that the property, which includes 32 residential units and one commercial space, features loft and townhome style floorplans designed by architect Jay Vanos to appeal to young professionals who have begun moving eastward to Eagle Rock from areas like Silverake and Los Feliz. “Although the units were individually parceled for condominiums, the buyer will lease the apartments and consider selling the units as condos in a future market cycle," Harris said. Darrow noted that, "This is the second transaction that Eagle Rock has seen this quarter in which an institutionally profiled buyer purchased a site from a local developer. While Eagle Rock remains less established than other parts of Los Angeles, its long term potential has begun drawing outside capital seeking to invest in emerging in-fill markets." Due to timing constraints, the developers opted to forgo individual sales and dispose of the asset on a bulk-sale basis, and the property attracted multiple offers from local and regional investment groups. Harris and Darrow say one of the reasons that the property generated so much investor interest is that it "represented an opportunity to capitalize on Los Angeles' already rebounding rental market or pursuse an immediate sell-out of the individual units." The units "feature innovative loft and townhome style floorplans" that can be expected to yield "significant price premiums over the homegenous product that is generally available in the Los Angeles housing market," the Marcus & Millichap team says. The buyer was PEI Asset Pool VI LLC, an opportunistic fund based in San Diego. The seller was a local private developer.

Furniture and home furnishings retailer West Elm has signed a 15-year, $6.5 million lease for 10,909 square feet of retail space at 8366 Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles for a new location. West Elm, a division of Williams Sonoma, is slated to open by the end of 2011. The retailer signed the lease with building owner Brand Art LLC, which was represented by David Ickovics and David Aschkenasy of Commercial Asset Group. West Elm was represented by Epsteen & Associates. The landlord has also retained CAG to provide property management services for the building.