Southern California’s Biggest and Most Notable Trades of 2022

Here are the deals that led the way or defined the state of their respective markets for Southern California in 2022, along with some of the most memorable deals and leases from the past 12 months.

Multifamily money moves

1. For its first move in California, Northland acquired THEA at Metropolis, a 59-story luxury multifamily tower in Downtown Los Angeles for a “steeply discounted” $504 million. The buyer said the deal with Greenland Holdings marked one of the largest single-asset, market-rate multifamily acquisitions in U.S. history.
2. Also downtown, developer Barry Shy sold a 1,037-unit portfolio for $402 million. MF1 Capital provided $328.8 million in financing for the deal.

Office work 

1. Blackstone (BX) bought into the 395,300-square-foot One Culver creative campus with LBA Realty for over $500 million. 
2. In El Segundo, Tishman Speyer sold a fully leased, 260,000-square-foot office for $205.5 million. And in Orange County, Hines sold a trophy campus called Intersect for $235.25 million to MetLife and PGGM.

Industrial scores

1. Thor Equities Group and a Danish pension fund bought a cold storage warehouse that’s leased to Anheuser-Busch for $85 million in July in one of the priciest industrial deals of the year, penciling out to an astounding $535 per square foot. But perhaps more notable, sellers Staley Point and Bain Capital bought the property six months prior for $35 million.
2. In the Inland Empire, REDA and Clarion Partners secured $210 million in construction financing to build the first phase of a 1.7 million-square-foot project. The Home Depot has already preleased 1.1 million square feet.
3. NFI Industries agreed to pay $220 million for a 759,260-square-foot distribution center in Eastvale, equal to about $290 per square foot. Sares Regis Group sold the property after acquiring it in 2019 for $87.5 million.
4. Alere Property Group paid $199.3 million for a new warehouse with 709,081 square feet in Riverside that’s fully leased to a third-party logistics firm, and KKR paid $136.5 million for a 281,000-square-foot warehouse in July. 

Major warehouse leases in the Inland Empire

1. Amazon (AMZN) signed a 4.1 million-square-foot lease with landlord Prologis (PLD) in the Inland Empire for what will be its largest warehouse in the nation.
2. The Home Depot signed a 1.1 million-square-foot lease in Ontario with Clarion Partners, and Best Buy signed a distribution center lease for 502,000 square feet with Dermody Properties.

Rams vs. Chargers

1. The L.A. Chargers scored first this year with $276 million in financing to build a new headquarters in El Segundo. 
2. But the Rams scored more often: Earlier this month, Westfield announced it sold the Village mall to Rams owner Stan Kroenke for $325 million. Kroenke’s purchase expands on a string of nine-figure acquisitions this year, all in the immediate area, that combined to make an assemblage large enough for a major mixed-use development complex with retail, hotels, dining or residences to surround a new Rams’ practice facility and headquarters. 

Mounting mergers & acquisitions

1. Prologis was already one of the top landlords in the world for industrial real estate. Now, it’s even larger after buying Duke Realty this year in a $26 billion deal.
2. Kroger and Albertsons grocery stores also merged in a $24.6 billion deal.
3. Hudson Pacific Properties acquired Quixote Studios, a local company that provides soundstage and production services, in a $360 million deal.

Mall sales 

1. In addition to the recent deal with Stan Kroenke, Westfield also sold the former Westfield Santa Anita mall in Orange county for $537.5 million.
2. Sterling paid $164.6 million in a bankruptcy auction to acquire the 403,200-square-foot Plaza Mexico in Lynwood.

Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.