Orange County Tower Trades for $151M

The deal marks the county's largest office transaction of the year so far.

City Tower. Image courtesy of Newmark

Opal Holdings has acquired City Tower, a Class A office property totaling 435,177 square feet in Orange, Calif., for $150.5 million from Pacific Oak Capital Advisors, according to Orange County records. Newmark represented the seller in the county’s largest office sale since the beginning of the year.

The asset last traded in 2018, when the current seller acquired the property for $147.3 million. The seller owned the property through its subsidiary Pacific Oak Strategic Opportunity REIT, formerly known as KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT.

The 20-story building is located at 333 City Blvd. W. City Tower features floorplates between 12,518 and 21,592 square feet and has a parking ratio of 3.36 spaces per 1,000 square feet, CommercialEdge data shows.

The Class A office tower came online in 1988 and recently underwent upgrades. The $3 million renovation plan included rehabilitating the dual-elevator lobby, fitness and conference centers as well as improvements to the entryway.

The multi-tenant property includes 2,000 square feet of retail and was 90 percent leased at the time of the sale. Flexible office space provider Regus occupies 21,592 square foot at the building, with the tenant roster also including UC Irvine Medical Center, Sedgwick, Alliance Funding Group, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Schmid & Voiles.

City Tower is situated next to a Doubletree hotel, with Interstate 5 and freeways 22 and 57 within easy reach. UCI Medical Center and The Outlets at Orange are within walking distance, while downtown Los Angeles is some 30 miles northwest.

The team working on behalf of the seller included Newmark Co-head of U.S. Capital Markets Kevin Shannon,  Executive Managing Directors Paul Jones, Brunson Howard and Ken White, as well as Senior Associate Brandon White.

Orange County appeal

According to Newmark research, Central County, the county’s third-largest submarket and the home of City Tower, recorded a 24 percent growth in office rents over the past decade.

In April, Irvine Co. opened the county’s first open-air office campus, delivering the first phase of its 28-building Innovation Office Park in Irvine, Calif. Orange County is seeing record deals for other asset classes too. Earlier in July, CBRE Global Investors paid $180.8 million for an industrial facility in Irvine. The deal marked the largest transaction for the sector in the county year-to-date.

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