2 San Diego office properties up for grabs

Real Estate Alert, Feb 18, 2004

Separate owners plan to seek about $210 million in total for two office properties in the San Diego area.

DRA Advisors is hoping to fetch up to $110 million for Pacific Center, a 438,000-square-foot complex off Highway 163 in suburban Mission Valley. Meanwhile, a partnership backed by General Electric's pension fund is seeking about $100 million for the 401,000-sf SBC Plaza, at 101 West Broadway in downtown San Diego.

Secured Capital, the dominant brokerage for high-end San Diego office properties over the past three years, has landed both listings. Since 2001, Secured has worked on 16 of the 22 San Diego County office listings valued at $50 million or more.

The offerings come at a time when a growing number of high-end properties are fetching interest from domestic institutional players, even as initial yields sometimes dip below 7%.

Pacific Center, which is about 93% occupied, consists of twill 10-story towers at 1455 Frazee Road and 1615 Murray Canyon Road. Secured, which won the listing last week, is still several weeks away from beginning a marketing campaign. The buzz is that DRA will likely seek about $250/sf, or $110 million. A buyer would have to assume an unspecified amount of debt.

DRA acquired the property in late 2002 from Maier Siebel Baber, a San Francisco unit of Charles Schwab, for $85.8 million, or $195/sf. It then signed three tenants to five-year leases: Progressive Casualty Insurance (18,000 sf), Preferred Employers Insurance (15,000 sf) and Countrywide Home Loan (8,000 sf). The three are paying rents of about $30/sf, not including electric charges. Existing tenants include the California Attorney General's Office and URS Corp., which both lease space through 2010. Leases will expire within three years for American Management Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, Safeco Insurance and Maxim Systems.

The buildings were constructed in 1986 and 1988. A major upgrade of the common areas, as well as landscaping improvements, was begun by Maier Siebel in 2002 and completed by DRA last year. The property includes a 1,225-car garage, as well as surface parking.

SBC Plaza, a 20-story building sheathed in reflective glass, was constructed in 1982. GE and local player Sentre Partners bought the property in 1997 front LaSalle Investment Management for $72 million. Also included in that transaction was the 330,000-sf building at 225 Broadway.

The occupancy rate at SBC Plaza is 91%, with asking rents of up to $30/sf (full service). Leases on about 160,000 sf--roughly 40% of the space--expire in 2005 and 2006. Tenants include SBC Communications, Morgan Stanley, Frontier Insurance, Pillsbury Winthrop and the U.S. Attorney's Office. The property includes a 650-car underground garage. Several large tenant improvements have been completed since 2000.