Swig Co. Buys West Los Angeles Office Asset 

3130 Wilshire Blvd. Image courtesy of Newmark

The Swig Co., of San Francisco, has purchased 3130 Wilshire Blvd., a six-story, 96,085-square-foot office property in West Los Angeles’ Santa Monica submarket. Newmark represented the undisclosed seller.

According to CommercialEdge, the property’s previous owner is Kilroy Realty. 3130 Wilshire has five levels of attached, secured parking; is LEED Silver certified; and is within easy reach of the I-405 and 10 freeways. It’s surrounded by numerous dining options, walkable amenities, and three high-end grocery stores, including Bristol Farms and Erewhon Market.

This was Swig’s first acquisition in Santa Monica. Swig owns four other office buildings in the Los Angeles area, with a footprint totaling almost 1 million square feet.

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Swig reportedly plans to significantly invest in building upgrades, including a modernization of the infrastructure systems, as well as cosmetic improvements and the addition of various tenant amenities.

The sale also included a surface parking lot about one block from the property. A Newmark spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive that the separate parking lot is about 0.3 acres and is zoned R-2, so it has residential potential. Newmark cannot, however, speak to the buyer’s plans, if any, for this parcel.

Newmark Co-Head of Capital Markets Kevin Shannon, Executive Managing Directors Ken White and Rob Hannan, Senior Managing Director Laura Stumm and Associate Director Michael Kolcum represented the seller.

Newmark’s Private Capital Group, led by Vice Chairman Sean Fulp and Managing Director Ryan Plummer, assisted with the sale.

Attractive to private capital

Investor interest in the property “was tremendous and very competitive even in today’s market,” Shannon said in a prepared statement. With many traditional institutional investors on the sidelines right now, he continued, “We had exactly a dozen family office buyers submit offers on this asset. Private capital isn’t trying to time the market and is simply looking for an attractive entry basis in long-term desirable office markets, like Santa Monica.”

Hannan added: “Santa Monica office ownership is truly an exclusive club. Assets in this submarket rarely trade, with so many being long-term investors, who have little to no inclination to sell.”

According to Newmark Research’s second-quarter capital markets report, Los Angeles ranked second, behind Manhattan, among markets with the largest office investment sales in the first half of 2022. Quarterly investment volume overall, across all property types, increased 17.5 percent year-over-year, representing the third-highest quarter volume total in history.

Not quite a year ago, Swig obtained a $190 million refi package for its 12-story, 271,000-square-foot office property at 633 Folsom St. in San Francisco. Swig has owned the property since its construction in 1967 and as of last year had recently completed a major redevelopment there, including the addition of five floors totaling 100,000 square feet.

And this past July, Swig sold a 536,000-square-foot office building in Richardson, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, to a joint venture of JP Realty Partners and Liberty Bankers Insurance. The building is the global headquarters for the Fossil Group.