Office Sale Ranks Among Largest of '09

IRVINE, CA-Edison Spectrum Partners LLC has sold its 47,815-square-foot Safari Technology Park to GFE Goddard Investment LLC in a deal that Voit Commercial Brokerage division of Voit Real Estate Services describes as one of the largest office investment sales in Orange County this year. Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the office property was on the market at an asking price of $13.5 million; sources indicate the sales price was in the neighborhood of $11.5 million.

The Safari Technology Park is composed of three class-A, two-story tilt-up office buildings demised into a total of 12 suites. The property is located at 300 to 320 Goddard Way, approximately two miles from the Irvine Spectrum shopping and entertainment center.

Michael Hartel, senior vice president of Voit Commercial Brokerage, says that the transaction would not have been possible had it not been for “the resilience displayed by both the seller and the buyer in the face of today’s tumultuous economic conditions.” Hartel was part of a Voit team including Dan Vittone and Alan Pekarcik that represented Edison Spectrum in the sale. Buyer GFE Goddard was represented by Richard Pincott of the Newport Beach office of CB Richard Ellis.

Hartel notes that the deal closed “in a market when investment sales have become increasingly scarce.” The Safari Technology Park, which was completed in 2002, has been owned and maintained by Edison Spectrum Partners LLC since its development.

Although the Safari Technology Park sale is one of the largest investment office sales to close this year, if not the largest, at least one owner-user sale was larger. In that deal, Chapman University College bought a 117,000-square-foot office building in Irvine for more than $20 million in one of the largest office deals to close in Orange County since the summer of 2008.