CBRE sells downtown headquarters for $330 million

Los Angeles real estate services firm CBRE Group Inc. has sold its corporate headquarters on Bunker Hill to a joint partnership that includes a German asset manager.

A purchase price for 400 S. Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles was not disclosed, but people familiar with the deal pegged it at about $330 million.

The 700,000-square-foot building, which is adorned with the CBRE name, is home to the brokerage, BNY Mellon and law firm O’Melveny & Myers, for whom the building was originally constructed in 1982.

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CBRE Global Investors, an affiliate of CBRE Group, had acquired the 26-story tower at the southeast corner of Hope and 4th streets in 2012 for a reported $236 million.

Lew Horne, president of the Los Angeles region for CBRE, said the global investor unit always planned to sell the property. He said CBRE, which handles leasing for the building, was able to boost occupancy from about 80% in 2012 to 93% today, by renovating the building and putting in two new restaurants.

The company will remain in the building, where it built its own creative, “untethered” office with no assigned desks.

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The new buyers were a joint partnership between PNC Realty Investors and Munich-based GLL Real Estate Partners, said Kevin Shannon, president of West Coast capital markets for Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who represented the sellers along with agents from CBRE.

“We are seeing a lot more foreign capital. The U.S. is the global safe haven,” Shannon said, noting the struggles of overseas economies.

Horne put it this way: “The entire globe feels like L.A. is a very good value.”

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