Thousand Oaks Campus Bought Out of Foreclosure

Investors have bought the Conejo Spectrum office and industrial park out of foreclosure and plan to refurbish the property, according to Long Beach investment firm Harbor Associates. Harbor Associates, which buys and repositions under-performing properties with its partner, private equity real estate investment firm Bascom Group of Irvine, paid $13 million for the two-building campus totaling 160,000 square feet at 1525 and 1535 Rancho Conejo Blvd. The 14-acre complex was 78 percent leased at the time of the closing. The joint venture secured the deal through a distressed auction bid process, Harbor said. The seller was CW Financial Services. The $81.25 per-square-foot purchase price is the lowest in Thousand Oaks since 2001, according to Harbor. The venture plans to revitalize current office suites and add new, smaller and equipped suites on speculation that will be immediately available for smaller tenants, said Harbor Principal Paul Miszkowicz. The partners also plan to paint the buildings, update lobbies, replace the landscaping with drought-tolerant plants, install new signs and reposition the campus. The purchase is the two companies’ first in the L.A. area, said Miszkowicz. The venture’s strategy focuses on finding complexes in need of significant refurbishing and buying them by being able to close quickly. The Thousand Oaks deal closed in 21 days, including due diligence. “We intend on building on our recent momentum by sourcing new opportunities and pursuing similar strategies in high demand Southern California submarkets in order to meet our acquisition goal of $250 million by year-end 2017,” Miszkowicz said in a statement. Sean Fulp of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented the seller in the transaction. Harbor represented itself in the transaction.