LOS ANGELES—The Berenzweig Trust has moved its industrial offices from 1045-1057 S. Olive St. in Downtown Los Angeles to UNI Hosiery Co.'s former headquarters at 3829 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, GlobeSt.com has learned exclusively. Developer Crescent Heights purchased the South Olive Street property, which includes a half-acre development site, from the Berenzweig Trust for $11.5 million. Then, in a 1031 transaction, the Berenzweig Trust purchased the South Broadway property for $9.5 million, making the total transaction value $21 million.

“The location of South Olive and 11th in Downtown Los Angeles has radically changed in the past several years with the urban gentrification from an historical industrial area to a thriving urban-living environment,” Anita Artukovich, a broker in Lee & Associates Central Los Angeles office who represented the Berenzweig Trust in both transactions and Crescent Heights in the purchase of the South Olive property, tells GlobeSt.com. “This site is located in the heart of South Park, where the 90% of the block is under construction at the present time, with three large high-rise multifamily mixed use projects underway.” The Berenzweig Trust also wanted to consolidate this location with its 58,560-square-foot Duarte warehouse, while remaining close to the garment district. This combination made it an ideal time to relocate its operations, and the South Broadway property was a perfect match. The South Olive property currently serves as the headquarter's offices, showroom and warehouse space for the Berenzweig Trust's subsidy ACME Display. The Berenzweig Trust plans to take occupancy of the South Broadway property in June 2015. In the meantime, ACME Display will remain in the South Olive Street site as a tenant during the renovation period. 

“The Olive-and-11th site had numerous potential buyers, even though it was not formally on the market,” says Artukovich. “Most developers require extended long-term escrow periods to complete their entitlement process and additional time to secure capital partners. Crescent Heights was not only able to work within the time frame needed to purchase the South Broadway property but is a large privately held developer with all of their own capital, hence did not need to secure any capital partners nor outside financing.” As a policy, Crescent Heights does not release its development plans; however, the developer specializes in multifamily projects.

Although the property received healthy interest from potential buyers, timing the transaction correctly to allow for the Berenzweig Trust to find and secure another property was crucial. “The difficulty was locating a suitable replacement property that was large enough for their operations yet close to the downtown core where their customer base is,” adds Artukovich. The seller's Duarte warehouse is also currently on the market, and is receiving plenty of interest from prospective buyers.

The South Olive St. area is seeing heavy contrustion in general, not just on that block. Nearby, Africa-Israel USA sold Park Fifth, a 2.27-acre development site in Downtown Los Angeles at the corner of Fifth and Olive Streets, to the MacFarlane Partners. The buyer plans to develop a mid-rise and high-rise mixed-use complex on the site. This is just one of the many development sites being scooped up in the neighborhood.