Canadian Buyer High on Downtown L.A. Tower

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A 17-story office building in downtown Los Angeles sold earlier this month for an as-yet undisclosed price.

Canada’s Onni Real Estate, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, purchased the Class A office property at 600 Wilshire Blvd. from Boston’s Beacon Capital Partners.

Built in 1980, the 311,000-square-foot building last traded hands in 2006 as part of a portfolio sale and was valued at the time at about $67 million.

The 24-year-old building, renovated in 2002, was only about 61 percent leased at the time of sale, which closed Nov. 11.

The tower is the second Beacon has sold in downtown in as many months. In October, the firm sold the 62-story Aon Center tower at 707 Wilshire, which it had owned since 2007, to San Francisco firm Shorenstein Properties for $269 million.

Neither buyer nor seller returned requests for comment on the sale.

South Bay Swag

El Segundo tech company Prodege, the parent company of online rewards site Swagbucks, has recommitted to the South Bay city.

The company has signed a six-and-a-half-year lease for about 24,200 square feet at the Pacific Corporate Towers, a complex of three office towers on Sepulveda Boulevard owned by New York investment company BlackRock Inc. and a pension fund for General Motors Co. The tech company took the entire eighth floor of the building at 100 Sepulveda Blvd.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but CBRE Group Inc., which handles leasing in the towers, is marketing space on the 10th floor of the same building for $2.25 a square foot a month, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group Inc. At that rate, Prodege’s lease would be valued at about $4.2 million.

Founded in Redondo Beach in 2006, the company moved to El Segundo last year. It signed a short-term sublease with IBM for space in the Pacific Corporate Towers. The company, which received a $60 million investment earlier this year from Technology Crossover Ventures, has about 120 employees but anticipates reaching up to 160 in short order.

Stacey Olliff, Prodege senior vice president of business development and legal affairs, said the company looked around a bit, but not extensively. Prodege was happy with the city, as well as with efforts by landlords to attract and retain tech tenants.

“El Segundo has a pretty pro-business environment and easy access; LAX is super convenient and fortunately we’re not in the flight path, so we’re fine,” he said. “This is a great complex. It’s been refurbished and each of the towers has electronic lobbies with open Internet access and device charging for everyone.”

Prodege plans to spend about $1 million to renovate its office. It will get rid of cubicles left behind by IBM in favor of a more open floor plan and add perks to the space such as informal gathering areas, table tennis, billiards and separate kitchens for different dietary needs – one Kosher and one not.

Brian Davies and Dave Toomey of Cresa Partners of Los Angeles Inc. represented the tenant in the deal. John Ayoob, Erin Grannis and Grafton Tanquary of CBRE represented the landlord.

Industrial Acquisition

Santa Monica real estate investment trust Colony Financial Inc. announced last week that it had agreed to acquire Cobalt Capital Partners, a real estate investment trust in Irving, Texas, for about $1.6 billion.

With the acquisition, Colony will gain a 30 million-square-foot industrial portfolio with 256 properties across 16 major U.S. markets. Much of Cobalt’s portfolio is concentrated in Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago. The transaction is expected to close next month.

Colony founder Thomas Barrack Jr. said the Cobalt acquisition would generate attractive returns for his firm.

“Cobalt is a highly coveted portfolio of strategically located assets, in high-growth markets, well-positioned to benefit from a strengthening economy in the next phase of the business cycle,” he said in a statement. “Moreover, it features strong rental rates and a well-diversified tenant base, underscored by low capital requirements.”

News of the acquisition came after Barrack announced earlier this month that his investment firm Colony Capital would merge with the public real estate investment trust.


Staff reporter Bethany Firnhaber can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 235.

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