Los Angeles County agrees to buy downtown skyscraper

The county of Los Angeles has tentatively agreed to purchase the Fuel Firm Tower, a distinguished workplace skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, for $215 million in a foreclosures sale.

The value is a deep low cost from its appraised worth of $632 million in 2020, underscoring how a lot downtown workplace values have fallen lately.

The Board of Supervisors should nonetheless approve the deal, which county actual property officers quietly however aggressively negotiated. If accomplished, the acquisition may transfer employees and public providers out of present county places of work, together with the well-known Kenneth Hahn Corridor of Administration, which dates to 1960, based on a number of individuals aware of the transaction who requested they not be named so as to talk about the confidential negotiations.

The county has begun the due diligence technique of inspecting the property for attainable structural issues or different points earlier than finalizing the transaction, which may take two to a few months to finish, the sources mentioned.

In an announcement to The Occasions, the county mentioned that it had submitted a nonbinding “letter of curiosity” for the tower.

“As a result of we’re seeing once-in-a-generation worth reductions for business actual property within the downtown space, as accountable stewards of public funds, the County is doing its due diligence and evaluating the opportunity of buying property within the Civic Middle space, such because the Fuel Firm Tower,” the assertion mentioned.

Supervisor Janice Hahn, who’s the daughter of longtime supervisor Kenneth Hahn, mentioned in a separate assertion to The Occasions that she will not be totally on board with the acquisition.

“I’m uncomfortable with the County transferring ahead buying this skyscraper till I perceive the CEO’s full plan which I’ve but to see. I’m positively in opposition to transferring County providers away from Los Angeles’ solely Civic Middle,” she mentioned.

The Fuel Firm Tower represents “a generational funding alternative to accumulate a trophy asset at an distinctive foundation,” Andrew Harper, a dealer with the true property agency JLL, mentioned in Could when JLL was employed to market the property. JLL declined to remark Tuesday on the pending sale.

The 52-story tower at 555 W. fifth St. was extensively thought of one of many metropolis’s most prestigious workplace buildings when it was accomplished in 1991. It has about 1.4 million sq. ft of area on a 1.4-acre web site on the base of Bunker Hill.

In recent times the downtown workplace market has turned in opposition to landlords as many tenants diminished their workplace footprint in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it grew to become extra widespread for workers to work remotely.

Final yr, the proprietor of the Fuel Firm Tower, an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Administration Ltd., defaulted on its debt and the property was put in receivership, by which a court-appointed consultant took custody of the constructing to assist collectors recuperate funds they lent to Brookfield. The constructing has roughly $465 million in excellent loans.

Elevated rates of interest have weighed on costs by making it tough for constructing homeowners to refinance debt and pushing them into fast gross sales or foreclosures. Some downtown L.A. workplace tenants have expressed concern lately that the streets really feel much less protected than they did earlier than the pandemic and have left for different native workplace facilities together with Century Metropolis.

The Fuel Firm Tower was renovated in 2023 and the tower presently is greater than half leased to tenants together with Southern California Fuel Co., monetary consulting agency Deloitte and regulation agency Latham & Watkins, based on actual property information supplier CoStar.

Workplace emptiness in downtown Los Angeles was greater than 30% within the second quarter, actual property brokerage CBRE mentioned, greater than triple the extent usually thought of to be a wholesome stability between tenant and landlord pursuits.

Falling workplace values downtown are catching the eye of consumers in search of to seize property at a low level available in the market, mentioned Petra Durnin, an actual property analyst at Elevate Business Actual Property who will not be concerned within the deal.

“Unlucky conditions can create alternatives for others with the money,” Durnin mentioned. “Downtown has been by means of growth and bust cycles earlier than and at all times reinvented itself.”

A close-by 52-story workplace tower previously owned by Brookfield at 777 S. Figueroa St. is about to be offered on the considerably discounted worth of $120 million, or $117 a sq. foot, the Business Observer reported. It got here near promoting for about $145 million just a few months in the past however the deal fell aside.

In its assertion to The Occasions, the county mentioned it was eyeing the Fuel Firm Tower as an alternative choice to seismically retrofitting its downtown properties. The county owns 33 amenities that engineers say are susceptible to break down throughout a significant earthquake, together with the Kenneth Hahn Corridor of Administration, which has been the headquarters of Los Angeles County authorities for six a long time, residence to the places of work of a whole lot of staff and the 5 county supervisors.

Final yr, the county pledged to improve all 33 susceptible buildings throughout the decade, an bold endeavor that specialists say would price a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars}.