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It's not just industrial that Amazon has eyes for in Orange County; the e-commerce company's latest big lease in the region is for office space.
Amazon has reportedly struck a deal to occupy an entire building at the Spectrum Terrace office campus in Irvine, a newly built collection of offices and amenity space from The Irvine Co. The deal is for a 116K SF building at 17300 Laguna Canyon Road in Irvine, the Orange County Business Journal reported.
The building is one of three that Irvine Co. built out during the first phase of its 1.1M SF Spectrum Terrace project.
It is unclear what Amazon will use the space for; both the company and Irvine Co. declined to comment on the deal. Amazon counts office space across the 405 Freeway from the Spectrum Terrace project in other office buildings owned by Irvine Co., according to OCBJ.
Late last year, Amazon was behind another significant office space deal when it bought a 640K SF call center in Brea; however, that site is expected to be redeveloped into a distribution center.
Amazon’s new spot in Irvine was originally slated to be occupied by WeWork. The coworking company signed a lease for the whole building in 2019 shortly after it wrapped construction, but the company backed out of the lease in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic before finishing tenant improvements.
It's not the first full-building commitment that Irvine Co. has landed at the office campus. Technology firm Alteryx signed a deal in 2019 to occupy an entire building and then some at the campus, and last June, Irvine Co. announced that commercial real estate data company CoStar Group had leased the entire building at 17600 Laguna Canyon Road. At that time, the landlord said the project was 80% leased.
Amazon's lease was signed in December 2021 with a move-in date of June 2022, according to data from CoStar.
The Spectrum Terrace project is in its final stages now. Irvine Co. announced in August that construction had begun on the third and final phase of the project, which will add about 345K SF of office space across three four-story buildings. Irvine Co. said it expects construction to wrap up in August 2022.
The sizable lease comes as Orange County’s office market picks up steam. Leasing activity in the region increased 38% from Q3 to Q4 2021, according to a JLL report. Sublease space declined 12% in Q4 to 2.8M SF, getting close to the 2.4M SF pre-pandemic sublease total.
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