Label Maker No Longer Stuck on Pasadena HQ

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Avery Dennison Corp., a label and packaging maker, has a contract to sell its Pasadena headquarters for about $20 million.

Foster City commercial and residential real estate investment firm Legacy Partners has agreed to purchase the three-story, 98,000-square-foot office building at 150 N. Orange Grove Blvd. and an adjacent property, sources said.

The sale includes a three-building, 12-unit apartment complex at 120 N. Orange Grove, and a leasehold interest in a nearby estate home and conference center. It is expected to close next month.

The package of properties has been on the market for about two months, as Avery prepares to move to new leased digs in a cost-saving move.

It is not yet clear where the firm will move, though brokers said it planned to find a new 90,000-square-foot space within the Tri-Cities area.

More than a dozen companies placed bids to acquire the Pasadena property, which was built as Avery Dennison’s corporate headquarters in 1981.

Legacy plans to convert the property into a creative office campus, in hopes of attracting the media and tech industries. The company’s commercial portfolio spans California, Colorado and Washington state. Among its holdings in Los Angeles are a 110,000-square-foot office building at 710 S. Lake Ave. in Pasadena and a 404,000-square-foot office building at 6300 Wilshire Blvd. on the Miracle Mile.

CBRE Group Inc.’s Tom Bohlinger, Mike Longo, Kevin Shannon and Todd Doney represented Avery Dennison but did not return calls. Legacy did not return calls.

Shopping Center Sale

A 300,000-square-foot Rolling Hills Estates shopping center has traded hands for $87.3 million, one of the largest sales of its kind in the last year.

After the sale, the property will be getting a long-overdue upgrade.

A joint venture between Phoenix developer Vestar and New York investment firm UBS Global Asset Management purchased the Peninsula Shopping Center at Hawthorne Boulevard and Silver Spur Road from Principal Real Estate Investors LLC, a subsidiary of Principal Financial Group Inc. in Des Moines, Iowa.

The all-cash deal closed this month.

The price makes it one of the top 10 shopping center sales in Los Angeles County in the last 12 months, and the highest this year.

The 25-acre property was built in the 1960s. Today, it is 88 percent leased by tenants such as Vons Pavilions, Rite Aid and TJ Maxx.

Jeffrey Axtell, vice president of acquisitions and development in Vestar’s Long Beach office, said the company is prepared to spend $10 million to revitalize the property.

“This is a project that is broken and needs to be fixed,” he said. “We look for value-add properties. This is an A location with fantastic demographics in coastal California. We are going to remodel and reposition it and bring in new tenants to make it what it could be: this great, dominant center for the Palos Verdes Peninsula.”

The company plans to seek fashion, cosmetics and sit-down restaurant tenants. It also is planning upgrades such as new landscaping and exterior paint for the property. Renovations are expected to begin next year and be completed by the fall.

Christopher Hoffman, Rikki Keating and Thao Tran of Eastdil Secured represented the seller. Vestar represented itself in the transaction.

Sky-High Lease

New York accounting firm CohnReznick LLP is moving its L.A. office into the top floor of Century City’s 1900 Avenue of the Stars.

The firm signed a 10-year lease for 22,500 square feet at the 28-story building with landlord Duesenberg Investment Co. LLC this month. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The firm is the result of an October merger between JH Cohn LLP and Reznick Group PC. Cohn had been in 15,000 square feet at 11755 Wilshire Blvd. in Brentwood while Reznick occupied 17,000 square feet at Century City’s 1888 Century Park East.

The new lease will consolidate those offices. The company will not be shedding employees. Instead, it will be using an open-office layout with fewer perimeter offices, allowing it to house the employees in a smaller space.

Dave Toomey, Brian Davies and Carlo Brignardello at Cresa represented the tenant. Darren Bell at Topa Management Co. represented the landlord.


Staff reporter Jacquelyn Ryan can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 228.