What will become of the sprawling Beckman Coulter campus in Brea?
The 34-acre site at 200 and 250 S. Kraemer St. is up for grabs, listed by Cushman & Wakefield for “an unlisted price, on an as-is basis for the fee simple interest in the buildings and the land beneath.”
“This is an incredibly special redevelopment opportunity in a prime Southern California location,” said Nico Napolitano, a senior director at Cushman. “We expect interest from developers of all product types.”
The property includes three industrial buildings and two office buildings in the combined 576,234-square-feet headquarters for Beckman Coulter, a longtime leader in clinical diagnostics and life science research products.
Beckman Coulter told the Southern California News Group that it occupies four of the five buildings on the campus, and will ultimately stay in the space either under new ownership or somewhere else in Orange County when the property sells.
“Beckman Coulter Diagnostics continues to lease and occupy the site at Birch and Kraemer,” said Jeff Tarmy, director of Global Public Relations and Media for the company. “We are currently evaluating options to remain at this site as well as nearby site options. Regardless of our site location, our intention is that Beckman Coulter Diagnostics will continue to have a presence in the Brea area.”
Beckman Coulter was founded as National Technical Laboratories in 1935 by Arnold Beckman, a Caltech professor who created laboratory instruments and analytical tools that were fast, precise and easy to use. In his obituary in 2004, Coulter and the company was credited for its role in the creation of a polio vaccine and making it possible for emergency-room doctors to quickly detect kidney and pancreatic failure.
The “pensive chemist from the Midwest also helped advance military and civilian radar, explain the structure of penicillin, and hasten the search for molecules that might be used in drugs to better fight AIDS and many types of cancer,” the obituary reads.
The company name would evolve over the years, shifting to Beckman’s name, then Beckman Instruments (in Fullerton), then changing again after it acquired Coulter Corp. in 1998. The company, which merged with SmithKline Corp. in 1982, sold for $5.8 billion in 2011 to Danaher Corp.
Cushman & Wakefield, which posted a video of the property for its sales pitch, noted it will not accept any offers that seek to wait until new entitlements are approved by the city. So, housing developers would have to take their chances on rezoning the site.
Fountain Valley center trades hands
Another Orange County shopping center has traded hands, this time in Fountain Valley.
Warner-Euclid Plaza spans 47,685 square feet and is anchored by Stater Bros. at 11035 Warner Ave.
No terms of the sale were disclosed by Marcus & Millichap, which represented both sides of the sale.
The brokerage declined to name the buyer, only saying it was a “local investor who closed on time despite the many challenges in today’s marketplace.”
In recent weeks two shopping centers found new owners, one in Mission Viejo and another in Fullerton.
The Mission Viejo center at 24011-24031 Marguerite Parkway features a shuttered Orchard Supply Hardware store that will likely become a grocery store. The operators behind Wholesome Choice paid $11.63 million for the 51,312-square-foot retail center.
In Fullerton, the 41,219-square-foot shopping center at 229-333 North Euclid St. was anchored by a Stater Bros. before the supermarket closes. The new owner, who paid $12.58 million, is actively seeking a new tenant. (An online survey of readers told us that residents in this neighborhood would really love a Trader Joe’s to move in.)
IHP building 49 new homes in Alhambra
IHP Capital Partners in Newport Beach is building 49 new homes in Alhambra in a joint venture with Intracorp Homes.
The 2-acre infill site will become The Cordova with nine detached homes and 40 townhomes, 10 of which will be affordable units. The homes will have a Spanish Colonial architectural style.
The company said site development is underway, with construction expected to launch in September.
The property at 801 E. Main St. was previously operated as a car dealership.
Now cleared for development, the land has been re-zoned to residential.
The Cordova will be the sixth partnership project for IHP and Intracorp. They’ve also built Docente at Old School House, a 95-home neighborhood in Claremont, and Miren, a single-family home project in Arcadia.
Industrial building in Santa Ana snares $13 million
A 49,506-square-foot industrial building in Santa Ana sold March 25 for $13,198,102.
The seller was Stage Stop 8 LLC.
Voit Real Estate Services’ Hefner Vernick Team represented the seller and the buyer, Daytona Holding LLC, a local manufacturing company that will use the building at 2249 S. Yale St. as an “auxiliary facility for their Southern California operations.”
Santa Ana site, building snare nearly $6M
Storm Properties in Torrance paid $5.95 million for a vacant industrial property in Santa Ana.
The seller was an unnamed, revocable family trust.
The 2.53-acre site at 4320 W. 1st St. and 201 S. Mountain View St., includes an 11,300-square-foot building with a two-story office area and a fenced concrete yard.
Storm Properties, a subsidiary of Storm Industries, hired Newmark to market the facility for lease.
Buchanan Street makes first Vegas buy for $21.8 million
Buchanan Street Partners in Newport Beach recently bought a new Class A, three-building self-storage facility in Las Vegas for $21.8 million.
The firm bought the 103,570-square-foot facility and its 917 self-storage units directly from the project developer.
The acquisition marks Buchanan’s first in Vegas metropolitan area.
On board
Alan Scales, an architect at KTGY’s Irvine office, has been appointed to the firm’s board of directors. He’s responsible for turning creative strategies into buildable designs.
The real estate roundup is compiled from news releases and written by Business Editor Samantha Gowen. Submit items and high-resolution photos via email to sgowen@scng.com . Please allow at least a week for publication. All items are subject to editing for clarity and length.