Britannia R&D Park Picked Up for $38 PSF

Asilomar has picked up the 195,000 square feet R&D park in Fremont (49000-49090 Milmont Drive) formerly known as Britannia R&D Center. UBS sold the property to Asilomar for roughly $7.5M. The park is now known as Dixon Landing Research Park.

UBS had been marketing the asset for quite some time. They had been seeking to convert the site to housing and were seeking roughly $40 psf (~$24M) on the land at the peak. The last flyer for the asset is embedded below. The new owners, which included Jason Peery, Ben Crockett and Roger Fields (also of Peninsula Land), paid cash for the property and are marketing the remaining 171,000 square feet at the park for some $.39 NNN.

The Business Journal is out with an article on the sale, where a few points are made. One is that the expenses will come in at about $.11, compared to the market number of $.35. The deal does allow Asilomar to both charge a lower base rent as well as give tenants the benefit of such a low tax basis, but market expenses we would venture are actually closer to about $.25 as opposed to $.35.

The second is a quote from Peery indicating that brokers are indicating that the new asking rate of $.39 NNN is too low. Those brokers probably represent other area landlords because a $.39 NNN asking rate is the market for that project. Excluding the benefit of the low expenses, we would even say that it might be a bit high when compared to what some of the other product in the area, which is both newer and nicer, could be had for.

A sale at this level does indicate that we’re close to the bottom in values, but there is still not a lot of velocity at these prices. The last similar deal to happen in the area was when Equastone got rid of 1331 California Circle back in May for roughly $50 psf – that landlord has been asking $.50 NNN for that building. We previously discussed the sale here and here.




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