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Oxford Properties Group has made its first direct LA acquisition, buying a 14-building business park in Santa Clarita for $133.5M.
The Southern California Innovation Park is spread across 118.5 acres. The sale also included development rights to over 40 acres of land zoned for a variety of commercial uses. The park is leased to tenants in the industrial and life sciences sectors, according to a release from Oxford.
"Substantially growing our life sciences and industrial businesses represent our highest conviction investment strategies and top priorities at Oxford,” Oxford Properties Executive Vice President of North America Chad Remis said in a statement. “The acquisition of Santa Clarita Innovation Park, and its additional development capacity, uniquely provides us with flexibility to build on our convictions in a Los Angeles market with an overwhelming scarcity of infill developable land.”
Oxford said that it has yet to determine what it will develop on the vacant acreage, but industrial real estate in greater LA has been a hot commodity, with vacancy dropping below 1% in some places.
Greater Los Angeles' life sciences market, while not as firmly established as San Diego's or San Francisco's, is growing. A June report from Cushman & Wakefield found that the vacancy rate for life sciences in greater LA as of Q4 2020 was 1.5%. Triple-net-leased rents have been on a steady rise over the past three years and were at about $48 per SF at the end of 2020.
Newmark co-Head of U.S. Capital Markets Kevin Shannon, Executive Managing Directors Ken White and Rob Hannan, Senior Managing Director Laura Stumm and senior associate Alex Beaton represented the seller, funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management and Intertex Co.
"Southern California Innovation Park is one of the largest remaining development sites in Los Angeles and is well-positioned to become a unique campus destination that caters to the market’s booming studio, life science, and industrial industries," Stumm said in a statement about the sale.
This year, Oxford has acquired six life sciences properties in the U.S., including three West Coast assets in the Bay Area and Seattle. Last month, Oxford also agreed to buy KKR's full industrial portfolio — 14.5M SF across 149 distribution facilities in a dozen top industrial markets — in a $2.2B sale.
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