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| 8875 Aero Drive, Kearny Mesa, CA |
San Diego, CA – Voit Real
Estate Services has successfully completed the sale of two flex/office
properties encompassing 140,470 square feet in the Kearny Mesa submarket of San
Diego, California.
Comprised of two buildings
situated on 7.61 acres, the $18.5 million sale includes the Aero Office
Building - a 37,000 square-foot, three-story, multi-tenant office property - as
well as the 103,470 square-foot AeroVault building.
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| Brandon Keith |
The AeroVault is located at 8875
Aero Drive, and the Aero Office Building is located at 8825 Aero Drive in
Kearny Mesa, California.
Protea has retained Ware
Malcomb as the architect on the project.
Brandon Keith, Randy LaChance and Jon Boland of Voit Real Estate Services’ San Diego office
represented the seller, 8825 & 8875 Aero Drive Holdings, LLC.
Kipp Gstettenbauer and Ryan King of Voit’s San Diego Exclusive Private Client Group
represented the buyer, Protea Aero Drive, LLC.
“The AeroVault is one of
the most unique buildings in the market today,” says Keith, a Senior Vice
President with Voit. “The property was constructed for Bank of America in the
early 1980’s as their primary Southern California money vault, which purported
to hold up to $1 billion in cash and coin at peak operation.
“Based on this specialized
use, the building has no first floor windows, and features heavy concrete
security elements throughout the ground floor.”
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| Randy LaChance |
The history of the
two-building asset is complex, according to Keith, who explains that the
AeroVault has been vacant for nearly eight years, and that both buildings
underwent court ordered receivership, followed by foreclosure, and finally
asset management by special servicer LNR Partners.
“Based on our expertise in
finding creative solutions, Voit was recruited to identify a buyer for the
assets,” explains Keith.
“Our team’s
active marketing garnered multiple offers over the two years we handled the property,
and Protea Aero Drive, LLC emerged as the first buyer to recognize the asset’s
true potential and agree to a non-contingent purchase acceptable to the special
servicer.”
Randy LaChance, a Senior
Vice President in Voit’s San Diego office, notes that the sale represents a
tremendous value-add opportunity in the current market.
“The Kearny Mesa flex and
office markets are among the strongest in the county,” LaChance says. “This
sale presented an exceptionally strong opportunity for a buyer to reposition
the facilities for lease in a tight market.”
This strategy is
well-aligned with the buyer’s plans for the property, which include the
renovation and re-positioning of the AeroVault into the premier creative tech /
corporate office facility in Kearny Mesa, according to Voit’s Kipp Gstettenbauer.
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| Jon Boland |
“Protea’s vision is to
create a state-of-the-art creative office environment like no other in this
submarket,” Gstettenbauer says.
“Leveraging the building’s excellent 4.75/1,000 parking ratio, 15-foot
high concrete ceilings, and outside open spaces, the buyer will re-design the
building inside and out in order to offer unmatched lifestyle amenities and
maximize flexibility for a wide range of office, medical, and technology
tenants.”
“The high technology
corporate and creative office trend has not been widely available to tenants in
Kearny Mesa, especially on this scale,” notes Gstettenbauer. “With markets like Sorrento Mesa offering
similar space in the high $2.00 per-square-foot range without the freeway
access Kearny Mesa offers, we expect the property to garner significant tenant
demand.”
Kipp Gstettenbauer, Ryan
King, and Brandon Keith of Voit’s San Diego office will handle marketing
efforts and the repositioning campaign for both assets going forward.
For more information on this news release, please
contact:
Katie Clendening/ Jenn
Quader
Brower, Miller & Cole
(949) 955-7940
