IRVINE, CA—Repositioning even well-kept assets for the next generation of office tenant has the end goal of raising rental rates in mind, CBRE's first VP Paul Jones tells GlobeSt.com. As we recently reported, CBRE has completed the sale of a 180,000-square-foot office campus at 3333 S. Susan St. in Costa Mesa, CA, to Steelwave and Goldman Sachs for $48 million. Building C, the largest building in the three-building, class-A, two-story office campus, will continue to be occupied by seller Emulex Corp. The remaining two vacant buildings total approximately 84,000 square feet and will be repositioned, along with the remainder of the campus, to be one of the premier progressive-office campuses in the Greater Airport Area. We spoke exclusively with Jones, one of the team who represented the seller in the transaction, about what makes a property a good candidate for creative redevelopment.

GlobeSt.com: What elements of an asset make it a good candidate for creative-office redevelopment?

Jones: Developers are looking for one- and two-story product with the potential for a lot of indoor/outdoor space and a lot of common courtyards, which are great for this type of conversion. It needs to be laid out well for what buyers and developers are looking for to convert existing product to creative campuses. At 3333 S. Susan St., there is an existing gym in the space that will be a great amenity, and it will be updated a bit. The property itself is a nice product; it was built in the early to mid-'80s and is just excess corporate real estate now—it's really well built.

GlobeSt.com: What works and what doesn't in these types of redevelopments?

Jones: Amenities are huge, and obviously this location will be completely redeveloped, with the L.A. Tribune site right next door—that was a big push for the buyer. That site mix of residential/commercial/retail, with the access to the freeway and excess land—the developer likes that. They could develop it themselves, add to the existing campus, do a build-to-suit or sell it off to another developer. There's flexibility down the road. This creative/progressive space is catering to a different type of tenant—it's not our father's office-type of tenant.

GlobeSt.com: Is this type of conversion common in this part of Orange County?

Jones: There's a whole progressive theme in this part of Costa Mesa. Bixby and Cruzan have bought and done conversions, Vans is redeveloping the 1588 S. Coast Dr. building, Bixby's asset on Quail is finishing up its conversion—but it hasn't seen rents achieve yet. It's proven in markets like Playa Vista and South Bay, so Orange County is a little behind—we're just seeing this type of building being delivered to the market. But it's based on some really good case studies of what people did right and what they did wrong. And it's all being bought by buyers and developers who have done it in other markets, so I don't expect these projects to fail.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about this topic?

Jones: It's all about being able to push the rents and repositioning and catering to this next-generation tenant. With all the projects going on in Orange County, this will be a theme for a long time. In talking to leasing brokers, this is the wave of the future and what tenants are seeking.