COSTAR / SEPT. 21, 2023

While accommodating multiple tenants in a single office building is not uncommon, giving up to six of them distinct entrances and private terraces is indeed unique.

In Southern California, architecture firm Ware Malcomb renovated a two-story 84,000-square-foot office building located at 1940 E. Mariposa Ave. in El Segundo. This “tilt-up” structure — built using a construction method that makes use of concrete panels — was previously occupied by a single tenant. For the redesign, Ware Malcomb infused flexibility into the property redesign, so the building could be adapted for occupancy by one or multiple tenants.

Sergio Valentini, principal of Ware Malcomb’s Los Angeles office and the lead architect on the project, considers project owner Montana Avenue Capital Partners to be a pioneer in the repositioning of assets into creative office space. Their business model has been to acquire assets in good locations that can be upgraded, converted and stabilized.

BIOSCIENCE REAL ESTATE INSIGHTS / FEB. 18, 2023

BURLINGTON, Mass. – A Los Angeles-based firm has proposed the office-to-lab conversion of a three-story, 106,000 square foot building in Burlington. Montana Avenue Capital Partners LLC, a real estate investment, management and development company, appeared before the Town of Burlington Planning Board Feb. 2 seeking approval for eight special permits and one site plan for the property at 5 Burlington Woods Drive.

The property is about 16 miles northwest of downtown Boston, just north of Interstate 95. The traditional office building, built in 1982, would be converted to a “state-of-the-art” lab facility. If the project goes ahead, it would be in good company; adjacent properties at 3 and 4 Burlington Woods Drive have undergone office-to-lab conversions within the past two years. The planning board was scheduled to take up the matter again this past Thursday (Feb. 16).

THE REAL DEAL / JAN. 16, 2023

Montana Avenue Capital Partners has bought a 127,100-square-foot entertainment campus in Burbank for $37 million.

The Sawtelle-based investment firm acquired the office and industrial park at 2777 North Ontario Street, the San Fernando Valley Business Journal reported. The sellers were Washington Capital Management, based in Seattle, and El Segundo-based SSV Properties.

The newly renovated property north of Hollywood Burbank Airport includes two-story office and industrial buildings that are 71-percent leased by entertainment and media companies.

REAL ESTATE WEEKLY / JAN. 3, 2023

Newmark announces it has arranged sale of 2777 North Ontario Street, a 127,140-square-foot office and industrial campus located in Burbank, California. The asset sold for $37 million.

“Montana Avenue Capital’s acquisition of 2777 Ontario is yet another example of private capital looking for an attractive entry basis in a desirable office market which Burbank is,” said Shannon. “In addition to its highly improved office space, the asset includes a uniquely specialized industrial component in one of the nation’s tightest industrial markets.”

COMMERCIAL OBSERVER / AUG. 31, 2022

Game on, El Segundo.

The owner of the North American headquarters for Nexon — South Korea’s largest video game developer — has traded the property to BLT Enterprises.

Montana Avenue Capital Partners sold the 49,307-square-foot creative office in El Segundo, Calif., for $27.3 million. Newmark announced the deal and represented the seller.

The small coastal city just south of LAX has attracted perhaps the most diverse tenant base in the region, with L’Oreal opening its new headquarters earlier this week alongside Beyond Meat, and with the L.A.

COMMERCIAL OBSERVER / MARCH 4, 2022

With demand for new industrial space at an all-time high, and available space at an all-time low, more investors are looking to convert other property types into warehouse space throughout Southern California.

Brookfield has acquired a two-story creative office building known as The H with more than 125,000 square feet near the Port of Los Angeles in the South Bay, and plans to explore logistics-based redevelopment projects, Commercial Observer has learned. Montana Avenue Capital Partners and Contrarian Capital Management sold the 5.2-acre property at 19701 Hamilton Avenue in the city of Torrance for $36.1 million.

LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL / NOV. 17, 2021

Sawtelle-based Montana Avenue Capital Partners has acquired a media campus in Burbank for $24 million.

The six-building media campus at 2435-2449 N. Naomi St. has 60,177 square feet of space, including creative suites, editing bays, production offices, soundproof recording studios, and a large production or event space.

Montana Avenue Capital Partners is branding the property as The Foundry. The company has plans to upgrade the buildings and outdoor amenity spaces.

THE REAL DEAL / NOV. 15, 2021

Armata Pharmaceuticals signed a 56,300-square-foot lease at 5005 McConnell Avenue from Montana Avenue Capital Partners, according to an announcement from Stream Realty Partners, which brokered the deal for the tenant. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The firm, which focuses on developing clinical-stage biotechnology, was previously headquartered at 4503 Glencoe Avenue — a 35,000-square-foot facility in Marina del Rey, according to its website.

Armata plans to build out a new research and development facility at the warehouse, according to the announcement.

URBANIZE LA / NOV. 13, 2021

Tech and pharmaceutical companies are making moves in Los Angeles County.

Earlier this week, Stream Realty Partners announced that Armata Pharmaceuticals will move its headquarters from the unincorporated community of Marina del Rey to the neighboring community of Playa Vista. The new office, located at 5005 McConnell Avenue, will include 56,300 square feet of space for offices, manufacturing, and research and development.

Armata, which is currently based out of a smaller 35,000-square-foot building, develops treatments for bacterial infections.

SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE / SEPT. 22, 2021

Boston-based life science developer Longfellow Real Estate Partners is betting big on Sorrento Mesa as the future home of San Diego’s rapidly expanding biotech industry.

The company announced last week that it has acquired Centerpark Plaza, a 10-building business park on nearly 17 acres of land off of Flanders Drive, just south of Mira Mesa Boulevard and west of Camino Santa Fe.

Longfellow purchased the portfolio of properties for around $150 million from Montana Avenue Capital, the developer said. It’s planning to invest undisclosed millions in converting the one- and two-story buildings, built in the 1980s, into top-tier research and lab suites.

THE REGISTRY SF / AUG. 5, 2021

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Montana Avenue Capital Partners, LLC (“MAC”), a real estate investment, management, and development company headquartered in Los Angeles, California, completed the acquisition of a 53,583 square foot freestanding single-story office/R&D building in Sunnyvale, California.

MAC acquired the nearly 4-acre campus located at 970 Stewart Dr., which it intends to re-brand as “Nine Seventy”, for $19.3 million ($360 per square foot) from Dellamanos and Hesslers, which had owned the property since 2005. The property is currently fully leased but expected to be vacant in the near term. The deal represents MAC’s 8th completed acquisition since December 2020.

RE BUSINESS ONLINE / JUNE 7, 2021

WALTHAM, MASS. — Boston Properties Inc. (NYSE: BXP) has acquired two life sciences buildings totaling 153,000 square feet in the western Boston suburb of Waltham for $100 million in cash. The seller was an affiliate of Los Angeles-based investment firm Montana Avenue Capital Partners LLC.

The buildings, located at 153 and 211 Second Ave., were fully leased to an undisclosed pharmaceutical company at the time of sale. The assets are located adjacent to Boston Properties’ 272,000-square-foot building at 200 West St., a portion of which was recently converted into lab space. That property is 100 percent leased to Translate Bio.

GLOBE ST. / MARCH 24, 2021

Mesa West Capital has completed the first transactions in its newly launched special situations lending platform. The new lending platform is the next evolution for the firm’s lending capabilities, providing rescue capital, mezzanine and preferred equity up to $100 million.

In the first deals under the platform, Mesa West funded $47 million in two deals located in Chicago and San Diego. In the Chicago deal, LaSalle Investment Management secured a $37 million mezzanine loan to refinance and stabilize a 30-story, 549,000-square foot class-A office building in Chicago’s West Loop. La Salle acquired the property in 2017 and has completed a multimillion renovation and increased the occupancy to 69%.

In San Diego, the firm provided a $10 million mezzanine loan to a joint venture between Montana Avenue Capital Partners and Arsenale SGR for the sale/lease-back of a four-building flex portfolio in San Diego. The seller/tenant in the transaction was Millennium Health. Both the San Diego and Chicago deals included first mortgage loans originated by Wells Fargo Bank. Keith Largay of JLL in Chicago arranged the financing on behalf of LaSalle Investment Management, and Aldon Cole of JLL’s San Diego office arranged the financing on the Millennium Health sale/leaseback.

THE REAL DEAL / FEB. 8, 2021

EverWest Real Estate Investors and Frontal Trust sold an industrial-to-office conversion in Redondo Beach.

Hawkwood Ventures paid $24 million for the 50,000-square-foot property at 2400 Marine Avenue, according to Commercial Observer. The property, dubbed LINQ, is fully leased to tenants including Uber. The ride-share company rents 10,000 square feet there.

EverWest and Frontal bought the property from Montana Avenue Capital Partners for $17.9 million in 2017. The latter converted the former industrial property into a creative office. Amazon was also a tenant at the time of the sale.

CBRE.US / JAN. 12, 2021

Los Angeles – CBRE announced the sale of a 165,905 square-foot headquarters property in Goleta, Calif. to Shopoff Realty Investments and Praelium Commercial Real Estate for an undisclosed amount.

CBRE’s Sean Sullivan Mike Longo, Todd Tydlaska, and Will Pike, alongside Steve Hayes and Francois DeJohn of Hayes Commercial Group, represented the seller, a joint-venture between Montana Avenue Capital Partners (MAC) and Brasa Capital in the transaction.

The property, located at 50-90 Castilian Drive, includes the three-building headquarters of a publicly traded technology company specializing in a cloud-based business software solution.

COSTAR.COM / MAY 20, 2020

MACP Kierland Fairways, a subsidiary of Montana Avenue Capital Partners, has sold Element at Kierland in Scottsdale, Arizona, to Valwood Element for $17.3 million, or about $300 per square foot.

The 57,662-square-foot office building at 14614 N. Kierland Blvd. was built in 1998 and extensively renovated in 2015. The building features creative-style tenant suites and is 98% leased.

Eric Wichterman and Mike Coover of Cushman & Wakefield represented both the buyer and seller in the transaction.

"The Element at Kierland is an outstanding office building filled with quality tenants in cutting-edge office suites and situated in a top-tier location," Wichterman said in a statement. "The property perfectly suited the buyer’s requirement for a long-term investment."

AZ BIG MEDIA / MARCH 11, 2020

The annual Real Estate & Development (RED) Awards are back, highlighting impressive projects completed in the last year and the owners, developers, architects and contractors who made these awe-inspiring projects possible. The 2021 RED Awards will take place virtually on Thursday, March 11, beginning at 3:30 p.m.

“The Phoenix commercial real estate market remains red hot as more companies are relocating and expanding across the Valley and state,” says AZ Big Media Editor in Chief Michael Gossie. “The growth has increased the demand across all sectors, which makes this one of the most competitive years in RED Awards history because there are so many great projects in contention.”

Premier sponsors for the 2021 RED Awards are DP Electric and Willmeng Construction. The virtual sponsor is DAVIS.

HAYES COMMERCIAL / JAN. 29, 2020

GOLETA – An affiliate of Montana Avenue Capital Partners, LLC (“MAC”) purchased the three-building campus at 50, 70, and 90 Castilian Drive in Goleta, California for approximately $35,725,000. The property, which is 165,462 square feet on almost 11 acres of land, is currently 100% leased to AppFolio, Inc. (NASDAQ: APPF), a leading provider of cloud-based business software and services for the real estate and legal industries.

Located near the intersection of Hollister Avenue and Los Carneros Road, the buildings are central to Goleta’s desirable and flourishing Hollister Avenue corridor, home to LogMeIn, Deckers, and most recently, Google.

The campus had been part of the Towbes Group portfolio for decades. AppFolio began leasing space at this site in 2011, starting in 50 Castilian Drive, then expanding into 90 Castilian Drive in 2015, and finally leasing the balance of the campus in 2018.

LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL / SEPT. 7, 2018

Video game publisher Nexon America is leaving Starwood’s PCT complex for a standalone office less than two miles away.

The company signed a nine-year, 49,000-square-foot lease at 621 Hawaii Street, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The property includes a backyard, patios, video streaming rooms, video editing suites, and a 15,000-square-foot gaming area.

The new office will be the company’s headquarters. It’s unclear how much square footage the company leased at PCT. The company laid off an undisclosed number of employees in February — up to a fifth of its workforce — according to sources cited by gamesindustry.biz.

Nexon’s new landlord is Montana Avenue Capital Partners, a Santa Monica-based firm. Montana renovated the 53-year-old building as a creative office.

LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL / JUNE 12, 2018

Westside-based Montana Avenue Capital Partners has purchased a 56,300-square-foot warehouse located at 5005 McConnell Ave. in Marina del Rey for $22.3 million or $396 per square foot from Maria Creative Office of Mustang, Okla.

Ian Strano, an executive vice president at NAI Capital, represented the seller. The buyer represented itself.

Teledyne Reynolds Inc., a contractor of aerospace and defense electronics, occupied the property for 39 years. The company will relocate to Torrance.

The property was built in 1969 and sits on 1.6 acres near the 90 freeway, close to Playa Vista and the Silicon Beach tech hub.

It was last sold in 2014 for $13.7 million, according to CoStar Group Inc.

THE REAL DEAL / JULY 18, 2016

Santa Monica-based investment firm Montana Avenue Capital Partners has acquired a 122,734-square-foot office building in Torrance as part of a joint venture with Contrarian Capital Management, The Real Deal has learned.

Montana Avenue and the Connecticut-based real estate management company forked out $17.3 million on the two-story property at 19701 Hamilton Avenue.

The seller was an LLC connected to Beverly Hills-based Latitude Management Real Estate.

“Our basis ensures we can make the capital investment necessary to provide our current and future tenants with the first-rate creative improvements and on-site amenities available in other submarkets,” Montana Vice President Steve Elson said in a statement.

Specifically, planned improvements include bathroom renovations, the addition of a tenant cafe and exposing the wood truss ceilings of the 1984 structure.

At the time of the sale, the property was 60 percent leased. Tenants include the Honda Federal Credit Union, nonprofit mental health organization Counseling 4 Kids, detective agency Pinkerton Government Services and UPS Supply Chain Solutions, according to CoStar.

“[Montana Avenue] has a proven track record of buying, renovating and leasing creative office projects in L.A. and this asset presents another immediate repositioning and lease-up opportunity,” Elson told The Real Deal in an email statement.