Wells Fargo Provides $57M Acquisition Loan Toward SoCal Office Campus Buy

An institutional lender provided acquisition financing toward the purchase of a Class A office campus in Southern California, Commercial Observer has learned. 

Borrower MGR Real Estate secured the $57 million note from Wells Fargo for the investment firm’s pickup of Orange City Square, a three-building, 383,558-square-foot office complex in the city of Orange, according to a source familiar with the deal. MGR paid $89 million to seller Granite Properties for the offices at 750, 770, 790 and 840 The City Drive South earlier this month. 

Newmark’s Kevin Shannon, Paul Jones, Ken White and Brandon White represented Granite Properties in the sale. The brokerage’s Jonathan Firestone and Blake Thompson arranged the financing on behalf of MGR. The 1988-built property, which was renovated throughout 2025, was 84 percent leased to 58 tenants at the time of the sale. 

“This transaction represents another example of private capital buying Class A office product at a massive discount to replacement cost and prior peak pricing at a time where the leasing fundamentals have clearly turned,” Shannon said in a statement. 

Though not as distressed as other markets elsewhere in Southern California, Orange County’s office market still suffers from high vacancy and a virtually nonexistent development pipeline. The region nevertheless demands high prices for certain high-quality properties, however, and certain tenants have greatly expanded their footprints there in recent months. 

In October, for example, Drawbridge Realty paid $78 million for a 190,000-square-foot office campus in Costa Mesa, dubbed The Hive. Drawbridge simultaneously inked a full-property lease at The Hive with defense contractor Anduril Industries on the same day that the sale closed. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.