Swift Buys Premier Oakland Office Asset

The premier office asset at 1111 Broadway in Oakland’s central business district is now part of Swift Real Estate Partners’ growing West Coast portfolio. Swift acquired the approximately 566,000-square-foot office tower from the University of California. The new owner isn’t disclosing the purchase price, but The Registry reports that sources close to the transaction indicate that the property traded for roughly $325 million.

“Investor activity is tenacious as buyers clamor for a dwindling supply of office product for sale,” according to a second quarter 2021 report by Avison Young. “Asset pricing has trended incrementally upward in recent months, indicating stabilization in this market.”

Designed by architecture firm Gensler, 1111 Broadway is a Class A, LEED Gold-certified building that stands 24 stories directly above a BART station. The striking high-rise first opened its doors in 1990 and has earned a reputation as one of the best-performing assets in the city.

1111 Broadway has had no shortage of owners over the past decade, having last traded in 2014, when UC purchased the property from Ellis Partners for $215 million, according to The Registry. The UC transaction occurred just one year after Ellis had picked up the building from CBRE Global Investors for $158 million. The investment firm had acquired the tower as part of an office portfolio purchase from a joint venture of Shorenstein Properties and the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio in 2010. It held the property for three years.

Today, 1111 Broadway is 91 percent leased to a diverse roster of tenants, including the likes of Merrill Lynch, leading law firms, and a host of construction companies. Most recently, Providence Medical Technology inked a lease for nearly 15,000 square feet at the property in the second quarter of 2021.

Actively seeking office opportunities

Swift acquired 1111 Broadway on behalf of Swift Fund III, its third institutional value-add fund, which targets office and industrial properties on the West Coast. And the company has been giving the office sector—still hovering in the booming industrial sector’s shadow—a lot of attention.

Swift’s transactions on the West Coast over the last 18 months include the $346 million purchase of the Apple-leased Results Way Corporate Center, a 373,000-square-foot campus in Cupertino, Calif. The company also bought the Hellyer Oaks Technology Park, a 347,000-square-foot, two-building campus in San Jose, Calif., in a $55.6 million transaction. And just outside Seattle, in Bellevue, Wash., Swift, acquired the 137,300-square-foot Columbia West Building for $72 million.