Skyline Group Acquires Orange County Office Campus

Glen Bell Way. Image courtesy of Newmark

Skyline Group International has purchased a fully occupied three-building office/R&D campus in Irvine, Calif., in yet another example of the strong interest of private investors in the local office market. The Taiwan-based company acquired Glen Bell Way from LBA Realty, according to CommercialEdge data.

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Newmark’s Alex Foshay procured the buyer while Kevin Shannon, Paul Jones, Ken White, Brunson Howard and Brandon White represented the seller. LBA Realty also recently sold a mixed-use building in Emeryville, Calif., for $172.7 million.

According to CommercialEdge data, Glen Bell Way was built in 2001 on a nearly 13-acre site in Orange County’s Irvine Spectrum submarket. The office/R&D campus is made up of three buildings totaling 273,180 square feet, including the five-story office building 1 Glen Bell Way, the one-and-two story office/R&D headquarter building 3 Glen Bell Way and the four-story parking structure with 911 spaces 5 Glen Bell Way. The campus also includes 91,457 square feet of remaining entitlements that can be used for future expansions or more office space for 3 Glen Bell Way.

According to Newmark, the campus is 100 percent triple-net leased to Ford Motor Co. and Yum! Brands, which operates several popular fast-food chains like KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Jones, executive managing director at Newmark, told Commercial Property Executive that the two tenants combined have a seven-year weighted average lease term at Glen Bell Way.

More deals expected for Orange County

Shannon, Newmark’s co-head of U.S. Capital Markets, said in prepared remarks that private capital from both domestic and foreign companies has dominated the buyer landscape of the Orange County office market activity this year.

According to Newmark’s second-quarter report on the Orange County office market for 2021, touring and leasing activity have begun to pick back up as pandemic-related restrictions are easing and workers are returning to their offices. The report showed that the Orange County office market saw an average asking rent of $2.75 per square foot and had a vacancy rate of 15.4 percent for the second quarter of this year. Newmark expects deal activity to ramp up, along with absorption gains, in the second half of the year.