Hedge fund TGS Management is working to convert two Irvine office buildings totaling 138K SF into a warehouse.

The buildings, built in 1970 and 2005, were a satellite campus for California State University, Fullerton. They sit on 12 acres at 1 and 3 Banting in the Spectrum area of Irvine, The Real Deal reported.

Orange County's industrial market added 3.6M SF of new space in 2023, an explosive increase that exceeded completions in the previous four years combined, according to a fourth-quarter JLL report. Although that drove vacancy up by 1.8% for the area, Orange County still has the lowest vacancy rate in Southern California, according to JLL.

Office-to-industrial projects have been cropping up over the last couple of years in Orange County, targeting offices that are industrially zoned or in industrial parks.

In Irvine, about 2M SF of larger-scale industrial projects, new builds and conversions, are either under construction or in the planning stages, according to the Orange County Business Journal.

Another office-to-industrial conversion is underway in Irvine at Inwood Park, an approximately 160K SF office campus at Red Hill and McGaw avenues, according to the OCBJ. Demolition for that project began in January.