Emeryville complex bought for $130 million
East Bay office building changes hands as deal shows market strength
EMERYVILLE >> A big office complex in Emeryville whose tenants include Leapfrog, IBM, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has been bought in a deal that points to a robust East Bay commercial property market.
An investment group based in Boston has purchased Hollis Business Center, a campus of two office buildings and a parking garage at the corner of 64th Street and Hollis Street in Emeryville.
Beacon Capital Partners, acting through an affiliate, paid $129.5 million in cash for the site, according to Alameda County property records filed on Dec. 8.
The seller was BentallGreenOak, a New York City-based real estate
investment firm.
The purchase was arranged through brokers Steven Golubchik, Edmund Najera, Jonathan
Schaefler, Darren Hollak, and Jack Phipps of commercial real estate firm Newmark.
“Hollis Business Center provides an investor with the immediate ability to offer a best-in- class mixeduse project with both creative office space and the opportunity to convert existing vacancy to premier life science space,” Golubchik said.
The entire campus totals 225,400 square feet, according to commercial property listing service
LoopNet. One of the buildings, 6401 Hollis St., totals 137,100 square feet; the building at 1480 64th St. totals 88,300 square feet. Both buildings were constructed in 2000, LoopNet reports.
“The two-building property is situated in the heart of Emeryville in one of the fastest-growing life science clusters in the country with more than 150 companies in the life science and biotechnology field,” Newmark stated in a prepared release.
The tenant roster in
cludes some prominent names: Leapfrog, an educational toys maker; IBM Aspera, a data and streaming unit of the tech titan; an office of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; Epic Care, a provider of oncology and hematology medical services; and Santen, a maker of ophthalmology products.
Beacon Capital, through joint ventures or investment partnerships, has spearheaded investments totaling $17 billion since 1998, according to the real estate firm’s web site.
Hollis Business Center attracted plenty of interest from prospective buyers because of the tenants in the complex as well as the potential that some or much of the space could be converted to life sciences uses, according to Newmark.
“Life science continues to be a top-performing sector in the Bay Area market as relentless demand for space continues to outpace existing supply,” Newmark stated.