Culver City Office Campus Proves Popular Spot

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The 1.6 million-square-foot Corporate Pointe office campus in Culver City has seen its share of activity in recent months.

Los Angeles-based IDS Real Estate Group has closed the purchase of a large parcel where it will build an office tower, and Legacy Partners Inc. has purchased a vacant office building developed by Symantec Corp. for $99 million.

In fact, office development has ramped up in the entire area that real estate industry players have dubbed the “Lower Westside,” defying a downturn in the commercial real estate market.

The area, including Westchester, Culver City and Playa Vista, has become more attractive to businesses that aren’t interested in paying the higher rents found in places like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. In particular, Playa Vista is seeing the construction of several large office projects.

“It’s been a bit of a well-kept secret until just recently; you’ve got over $2 billion being invested within a mile of our site,” said David Saeta, senior vice president at IDS.

IDS paid about $15.5 million for the property, according to a real estate industry source with knowledge of the deal.

The company has plans for a $115 million, 12-story office building on its 3.3-acre parcel. IDS purchased the land from the Bank of Montreal and the deal closed Dec. 18 after a nearly 26-month escrow period.

The lengthy escrow was necessary so that IDS could work out the entitlements for the project with Culver City, said Saeta, who added that his company hopes to break ground by the fall and plans to open the building in the second quarter of 2010.

The planned 277,607-square-foot, Class A building which is called Corporate Pointe Tower with an address of 700 Corporate Pointe is already attracting interest from large prospective tenants.

Steve Walbridge, Eric Olofson and Scott Menkus of Cushman & Wakefield Inc. represented IDS in the deal. Mark Birnbaum at Perkins Coie LLP represented the seller.

Meanwhile, a real estate industry publication reported last month the sale by software maker Symantec of one of its two Corporate Pointe office buildings. In a deal that closed Feb. 26, Foster City-based Legacy purchased a recently completed 239,274-square-foot office building at 800 Corporate Pointe, one of two towers built by Symantec. A Cushman & Wakefield team of brokers is leasing that project.


Historical Sale

The Chateau Laurier, a historic 1929 French Normandy-style apartment building, has traded hands for $4.3 million.

The Feb. 21 deal for the 18-unit building at 4353 W. Fifth St. included an adjacent five-unit building, Durbin Cottage, at 435 S. Wilton Place. The Hancock Park-adjacent property is subject to L.A.’s rent control ordinance.

The buyer was Seymour LLC, a partnership of local real estate investors, and the seller was Jomad Properties, a New York City real estate partnership, which purchased the building on a 1031 tax-deferred exchange basis.

Whenever a historic structure changes hands in Los Angeles, preservationists worry about its fate. But, Lee Ziff, the managing member of Seymour, said his group has no plans to tear down the building.

“We plan to hold and improve,” said Ziff, also a residential broker with Keller Williams Realty Inc. “The chateau is an architecturally significant property and we are really thrilled and proud to own it.”

The building is not on any historic register, but Ziff said his group would consider nominating the building for a historic designation. It was designed by architect Leland A. Bryant, who drew up several notable Hollywood-area apartment buildings in the 1920s.

Richard Ritz of Ritz Properties Inc., who represented the seller, said Jomad never had the building designated as a historic structure because that “encumbers the property.”

While the chateau might not be in play, Ziff said Seymour could consider redeveloping the Durbin Cottage site. A possibility includes tearing down that 1919 building, a converted single-family home, for a denser apartment building and auxiliary parking for the chateau. The chateau only includes nine subterranean parking spaces.

Seymour represented itself in the deal.


Boxer Deal KO’d Again

Oscar De La Hoya’s attempt to purchase the landmark Sears site in Boyle Heights and redevelop it into a mixed-use property has come to an end after months of back-and-forth with property owner MJW Investments Inc.

De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises LLC, and two partners had agreed to purchase the 22-acre at Olympic Boulevard and Soto Street last summer for over $70 million, but that deal fell apart.

Earlier this year, it appeared that a new agreement had been reached, but a statement from Bob Manarino, president of Manarino Realty, one of De La Hoya’s partners on the project, confirmed that the deal was dead.

Manarino left the door ajar, though, saying he hoped to revive the project at a later date.


Staff reporter Daniel Miller can be reached at

[email protected]

or (323) 549-5225, ext. 263.

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