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Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024

High-Profile Pickup Pumps Up Firm’s Portfolio

Johnston Group in Agoura Hills has raised the profile of its portfolio of office and industrial properties by trading out a lower-quality industrial and office park for one of Ventura County’s most recognizable office buildings. The developer and property management firm last month bought 1000 Town Center in Oxnard, a six-story Class A office building with a curved blue-green glass façade that towers over the 101 freeway across from shopping center the Collection at RiverPark. Johnston paid Equity Office Management in Chicago $24.2 million for the 115,000-square-foot building, which was 97 percent occupied at the time of the sale, according to the buyer. The structure, built in 1989, was once the headquarters of the region’s largest law firm, Nordman Cormany Hair & Compton, before it closed in 2013. “We’re trying to move toward more high-profile Class A buildings in our portfolio,” said Jeff Johnston, president of his eponymous firm. “We feel that’s where the market tends to move, especially in downtimes. When downturns do come, the Class A, more prominent properties do tend to do well.” In turn, the company is cleaning out its older and lower-image properties. In February, Johnston Group sold its Canwood Business Park, a Class B mix of 120,000 square feet of office and industrial space in Agoura Hills, for $21 million to Van Nuys property owner and operator Majestic Asset Management Inc. and JS/JS Properties Inc. in Canoga Park. According to the Building Owners and Managers Association International, Class A buildings get above-average rents for an area because of high-quality finishes, state-of-the-art systems and high accessibility. Class B properties have fair to good finishes for the area with adequate systems and draw average rents. The 1000 Town Center sits on the edge of RiverPark, a massive residential and retail development involving five different homebuilders and the Collection, a 600,000-square-foot open-air shopping center owned by CalCenter Properties in El Segundo. Medical Expansion In another sign of the medical real estate sector’s robust health, a doctors group has bought a Palmdale office park with plans to expand in the Antelope Valley. Roy Medical Group of Canoga Park, Van Nuys and Palmdale recently bought the six-building Woodland Business Park at 1601 to 1609 and 1543 Palmdale Blvd. for $4.87 million from Woodland Business Park, according to commercial real estate brokerage Lee & Associates-LA North/Ventura Inc. in Sherman Oaks. The doctors group already occupies about 3,000 square feet of the 44,000-square-foot complex and plans to take over more than half of the space, said John Battle, managing director and principal of Lee & Associates, who brokered the deal on behalf of the seller. “It took advantage of good financing terms available through the Small Business Administration to buy owner-occupied buildings,” Battle said. “The rule is they need to occupy 51 percent or more of the premises. But they have a year to do it.” It’s the second purchase and expansion by doctors in the region. In February, Pasadena’s Huntington Orthopedics Surgical Medical Group bought its second building in the past year near Huntington Hospital for $9.25 million. The 22,000-square-foot medical building is occupied mostly by the hospital but once that lease expires next month, the surgical group plans to occupy most of that property as well as part of a building it bought next to the hospital last April after an expansion. Pricey Residences A lack of homes and condos for sale and the rising prices of those that are on the market slowed sales activity in February in the valley areas, according to the Southland Regional Association of Realtors Inc. In the San Fernando Valley, the number of single-family homes that sold fell 6.7 percent to 322 year to year, according to the association. The number of condos dropped 10.6 percent to 135 units. Median prices of single-family homes that sold in February rose 6.9 percent to $561,000. Median prices for condos climbed even more – 10 percent – to $380,000. The total number of condos and single-family homes on the Multiple Listing Service fell 6.7 percent to 1,300 in February from a year ago’s inventory, the association added. In Santa Clarita, 130 single-family homes sold – down 4.2 percent from a year ago. On the upside, 55 condominiums sold, a 17 percent increase from the previous year. Single-family home median prices stayed flat from the prior month at $530,000. Condo median prices increased 11.7 percent from the year-ago period to $335,000. Staff Reporter Carol Lawrence can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or [email protected].

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