CBRE Arranges $111M Loan for Bay Area Creative Office Portfolio

Tribune Tower. Image courtesy of CBRE

Highbridge Equity Partners has refinanced a three-building creative office portfolio totaling about 300,000 square feet in downtown Oakland, Calif., with an $111 million five-year, floating rate loan from a global investment debt fund.

Oakland-based Highbridge will use the debt to repay existing loans and fund future improvements at the properties—the iconic Tribune Tower, 1500 Broadway and 405 14th St.

The loan from the unidentified debt fund was arranged by Brad Zampa and Mike Walker with CBRE Capital Markets’ Debt and Structured Finance group.

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Zampa, an executive vice president at CBRE, said in a prepared statement there are abundant financing options in the value-add space for transitional office deals in desirable markets like Oakland. He said the majority of loan originators the team works with had record-breaking origination volume in 2021 and he expects that to continue in 2022.

The oldest of the assets is the 22-story Tribune Tower at 409 13th St. Built in 1906, the high-rise has about 90,000 square feet of creative office space and 360-degree views of Lake Merritt, Oakland Hills and the San Francisco Bay. Highbridge acquired the building from Harvest Properties in February 2019 for about $48 million, according to the San Francisco Business Times. At that time, the asset had about 40,000 square feet of vacant office space, the newspaper reported.

405 14th St. is located a block from the Tribune Tower. The 16-story building, which includes a penthouse floor, has about 95,000 square feet of creative office space and was previously known as the Financial Center Building. It has a sand-blasted terra cotta façade and notable architectural details. Highbridge acquired the building in 2017 for $33.3 million, according to property records cited by the Business Times.

1500 Broadway is a Class A, creative office building in Oakland’s Uptown Station neighborhood. The historic building has frontage on Broadway and is a three-minute walk to the 12th Street BART station. The property, with about 91,500 square feet of space, was purchased by Highbridge in 2016 for $36.6 million, according to the Business Times.

 Active Office Market

Oakland’s tight office market has driven Class A asking rates to $5.46 per square foot, according to CBRE research. Rates are expected to rise further in the near term as new construction projects in Oakland’s CBD are delivered and leased in the coming years.

In August, Swift Real Estate Partners purchased 1111 Broadway, a 566,000-square-foot office tower built in 1990 from the University of California for a reported $325 million. Designed by architectural firm Gensler, the 24-story asset is a Class A, LEED Gold-certified building located above a BART station.

Earlier in 2021, CIM Group sold Uptown Station, a 397,000-square-foot Class A creative office and retail building at 1955 Broadway, to Singapore-based Mapletree Investments for a price reported in March to be between $420 million and $435 million. The property, built in the 1920s, is situated at the nexus of three key arteries in downtown Oakland’s Uptown district: Broadway, Telegraph Avenue and 20th Street. The building is also located directly above a BART station.