Land Trust, USA Properties Buy $27M Irvine Office Building

Nonprofit Irvine Community Land Trust and developer USA Properties have paid $26.5 million for a 70,000-square-foot office building in Irvine, with plans to turn it into affordable apartments.

The pair bought the two-story building at 2400 Barranca Parkway from Pasadena-based Gemdale USA, a unit of China-based Gemdale, which had scotched plans to replace it with a 275,000-square-foot office campus, according to Commercial Observer, citing a report from Traded.

The deal works out to $379 per square foot. Brokers Kevin Green, Joseph Grabiec, Greg Harris and Mark DeGiorgio of Institutional Property Advisors represented both parties in the sale.

Gemdale bought the five-acre property near Barranca Parkway and Von Karman Avenue in 2017 for $16.9 million, or $241 per square foot.

The building lies in a business complex near John Wayne Airport targeted by the city for redevelopment into as many as 15,000 apartments.

Detailed plans by the land trust and USA Properties were not disclosed.

“The [buyers] will look to develop much-needed affordable multifamily housing on the site,” Green said in a statement.

The property sits across the parkway from The District at Tustin Legacy, a shopping center that includes Whole Foods, TJ Maxx, Costco, Lowe’s home improvement store, AMC Tustin 14 movie theater and several restaurants, according to CO.

Gemdale USA was approved in 2020 to build two office buildings of five and six stories, as well as a seven-story parking garage, the Orange County Business Journal reported.

But it killed the project three years later after a shift to remote work cratered the office market. It also faced lawsuits from nearby businesses concerned about its size and traffic.

This month, Gemdale sold a three-story, 222,700-square-foot office building in Calabasas to Cross Ocean Partners, based in Connecticut, and the Los Angeles-based Palisade Group, for $69.4 million, or $312 per square foot.

The Irvine Community Land Trust, founded by the city in 2006 to address its housing crisis, has since spun off as an independent nonprofit. In the past two decades, the trust has developed 407affordable apartments, and 68 for-sale homes, according to its website.

— Dana Bartholomew