Bay Area Tech, Creative Offices Trade for $103M

New York-based investors Madison Capital and Meadow Partners have bought a landmark office complex on the shores of San Francisco Bay from Emeryville, CA-based Orton Development.

The 517K SF tech and creative offices, located on Ford Point in Richmond—the historic site of a former Ford assembly plant—traded for $103.7M, according to a report in SiliconValley.com.

The Fords Point tech and creative complex is 87% leased. The buyers said Cushman & Wakefield, which advised on the sale, will handle leasing for the property.

In addition to the offices, the property includes the Rosie the Riveter museum and a restaurant, The Craneway Pavilion. According to the Richmond Standard newspaper, Orton will retain ownership of the restaurant and the museum—which honors the women who worked at the plant during WWII, when it produced tanks for the US Army—will continue to operate on the site.

The Ford Point property, listed on the National Registry of Historic Places since 1988, was the East Bay site of a 26.5-acre Ford Motor assembly plant that produced cars until 1955.

Orton bought the shuttered complex in 2004 from the city of Richmond. The company spent $51M to redevelop the old auto plant, which needed to be retrofitted to comply with new structural requirements that were enacted after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in the Bay Area.

The 1989 earthquake famously disrupted a World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, the only time the two Bay Area teams have faced each other in baseball’s Fall Classic.

The plant’s adaptive reuse project won the American Institute of Architects National Honor Award in 2011. The design for the historic waterfront property at 1414 Harbour Way S. includes a unique “saw tooth” roof of jagged solar panel installations. The redevelopment most recently added electric charging stations.

The redesigned development drew tenants including SunPower, Columbia Sportswear and Ekso Bionics.

“We were drawn to this opportunity by the asset’s prominent waterfront location, robust power supply, high ceiling heights, expansive parking area and potential to create a dynamic best-in-class research and development facility, ” said Jonathan Nachmani, a Madison Capital managing director, in a statement.

Nachmani said the buyer’s capital improvements on the property will respond to a shortage of premium R&D space, aiming to attract some of the Bay Area’s most innovative companies.