Maguire, Opus Pen Deals for Office Tower Projects

Orange County Business Journal, May 14-May 20, 2007 by Mueller, Mark

REAL ESTATE: Developers sign more law, accounting firms

A pair of office tower developers has signed leases with two Orange County law and accounting firms for nearly 60,000 square feet of space at buildings going up near John Wayne Airport.

The latest deals are part of nearly 170,000 square feet leased to law firms and other professional service companies here in recent weeks.

Law Firm

Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties Inc. signed on Greenherg Traurig LLP to be its second law firm tenant at its 3161 Michelson office tower, part of the developer's Park Place campus in Irvine.

Costa Mesa's Greenberg Traurig. No. 22 on the most recent Business Journal list of law firms here, has signed a 15-year lease for 38,207 square feet at the 530,000-square-foot Irvine tower. The firm's moving from its offices near South Coast Plaza.

Greenberg Traurig will be joining the Irvine office of Los Angetes-based Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP at 3161 Michelson. Maguire's now leased up about 22% of the space at the tower, assuming the expected pulloul of New Century Financial Corp.'s 190,000-square-toot prelease.

Subprime lender New Century is winding down its operations in bankruptcy court.

Meanwhile, the local arm of Phoenixbased Opus West Corp. nabbed its first tenants for Opus Center Irvine III, the 314,074square-foot tower it's building next to John Wayne Airport.

Accounting Firm

Singer Lewak Grecnbaum & Goldstein LLP, an accounting and management consulting firm, has signed on for about 25,000 square feet of space at the third and final building being built at the Opus Center Irvine campus.

Los Angeles-based Singer Lewak is moving its local offices from Santa Ana. where it took up about 16,(XK) square feet of space. The company now employs close to 75 people here, up from about 50 nearly year ago. It was ranked No. 15 on the Business Journal's most recent list of accounting firms.

"We thought it was time to move into a business complex that reflected the image of our firm," said David Krajanowski, managing partner of Singer Lewak.

The firm signed on for 10 years. Jerry Neitlich. a principal with IN/House Corporate Real Estate, represented the company in the deal.

About two floors of the 13-story Opus West building now are spoken for. The developer plans to lease as much as 20,000 square feet for its own Irvine operations, according to Matt Montgomery, director of real estate development for Opus West.

Opus is looking to pen more leases with professional firms for its latest building.

"We'd love to be between 40% and 50% leased" by the time the tower opens in November, Montgomery said. "But we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Improvement work for the tenants at the Opus building is set to begin by mid-June, Work's expected to wrap up in about three months.

Coveted Tenants

Law firms and other professional service companies have been getting an increasing amount of attention from landlords and developers as of late, said Kevin Bender, senior vice president for the Newport Beach office of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., which represented Greenberg Traurig in its deal.

"With the lack of (leasing) volume in the market right now, (developers of) new buildings have been pushing very hard," Bender said. "These buildings have been designed to be attractive to professional service firms."

Landlords of existing buildings aren't sitting still either, according to Bender, who just wrapped up work on a trio of leases with local law firms.

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw and Pittman LLP renewed its lease at Center Tower one of three high-rise office buildings next to South Coast Plaza that's owned by CJ. Segerstrom & Sons LLC. The seven-year deal is for 17,773 square feet.

At Irvine's Jamboree Center office campus, The Irvine Company has been working to backfill space being vacated by law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the sixth largest firm doing business here according to the Business Journal's list.

Gibson, Dunn plans to take 80,000 square feet at Maguire's 3161 Michelson building just across the San Diego (1-405) Freeway.

Other Deals

Two law firms are taking up a majority of Gibson, Dunn's old space at Jamboree Center.

Howrey LLP expanded its lease at 4 Park Plaza by more than 25Vc. The firm now rents more than 45.000 square feet at the building. The latest deal with the Irvine Co., which is for an additional 11,000 square feet of space, is for IO years.

Washington, D.C.-based Howrey, which does securities litigation, antitrust and intellectual property law, signed its initial 34,000square-foot lease with the Irvine Co. late last year.

Howrey represents companies and their officers and directors in class-action suits, other shareholder litigation and also in Securities and Exchange Commission investigations.

The company, which had been based locally in one of the existing Opus Center Irvine towers, has nearly doubled its amount of space here in the past year.

Also at 4 Park Place, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP recently signed a 22.764-square-foot lease with the Irvine Co. The San Francisco-based law firm also is taking some of Gibson, Dunn's space, according to Bender.