Buyer Pays $61.5 Million for NoHo’s Academy Tower

The Academy Tower office building in North Hollywood has sold for $61.5 million, sources close to the deal said. Swift Real Estate Partners, a real estate investment firm in San Francisco, bought the 174,000-square-foot Class A office building at 5200 Lankershim Blvd. Kennedy-Wilson Inc. of Beverly Hills sold the building for a 28 percent increase over what it paid four years ago, according to CoStar Group Inc. The eight-story building on the visible corner of Lankershim and West Magnolia boulevards is in the heart of the walkable NoHo Arts District, and near the Burbank Media District. It is also close to the Orange Line busway and the Red Line train system, as well as interchanges of the 101, 134 and 170 freeways. The six-year-old Swift Real Estate Partners focuses on Class A and B office properties that it refurbishes and repositions. The firm has been focused on Northern California but started making inroads into Southern California in 2014 with purchases in Irvine and a three-building office portfolio in Carlsbad announced in January. Kevin Shannon, president of West Coast capital markets for commercial real estate brokerage firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank in El Segundo, brokered the deal on behalf of the seller along with Sean Fulp, Rob Hannan and Brad Burton. “Swift has recently purchased in mid-counties and Orange County, and will be buying more in Los Angeles,” Shannon said. “The building will be refurbished, rents will be raised and they will lease it up.”