BRIEFLY IN BUSINESS

Newport firm inks $11 million building acquisition

Newport Beach-based CT Realty Corp. announced Tuesday its purchase of a two-story office building in San Clemente for $11 million.

The 43,381-square-foot Class-A office building is in the Talega Business Park, two miles east of the I-5 freeway, and occupies two acres of land. A Class-A building is one that is considered to be in a desirable location and professionally managed, among other loose criteria.

The seller, HG-Burke Talega Development LLC, owned the building since it was developed in 2000. It is 85% occupied.

The deal is just one of more than 140 transactions in the past 12 years by the Newport company. Its deals have garnered more than $2 billion in acquisitions, sales, development and redevelopment projects.

Hilton Orange County helping to give back through charitable events

The Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa is ready to kick off its Adopt-A-Family Festival of trees today in conjunction with Costa Mesa nonprofit Share Our Selves. The open-house event will run through Thursday and each evening there will be entertainment, a silent Christmas tree auction and things for the kids to do.

The grand finale Family Celebration will happen on the last day and will include live and silent auctions, live entertainment by musician Alice Tatum, a buffet and family activities.

Each night, guests will be able to help decorate a tree, which were all designed by volunteer groups.

Celebs were even in on the donating and certain trees were sponsored by Britney Spears, Robin Williams, Quincy Jones, Merv Griffin, Angelica Huston and Roma Downey.

The Adopt-A-Family program is focused on providing gifts and food to families in need and has done so for the last 36 years. According to a release by the Hilton, the program helped 1,200 families last year. For more information visit www.shareourselves.org.

Hotel offers inexpensive rooms to relieve holiday home-crowding

In other Hilton news, the Costa Mesa Hilton is now offering special discounted rates for family and friends of neighboring residents.

The Friendly Neighbor rate, which is $99 per night, is extended to surrounding neighborhoods and is valid through Sunday. The program will kick off again Dec. 20 and run through the end of the year.

For more information call (800) 801-8427 or (714) 540-7000. The hotel is located at 3050 Bristol St.

Cartier boutique reopens Tuesday at South Coast Plaza

After several months of renovating, South Coast Plaza’s Cartier boutique reopened Tuesday in time for holiday shopping. The store closed in August and moved to a temporarily location for the renovations. The new location boasts about 1,000 more square feet and was designed by Paris-based architects Bruno Moinard and Barteluce Architects & Associates.

The boutique offers one-of-a-kind jewelry designs along with Cartier’s signatures.

John Wayne Airport to help award scholarships for would-be managers

John Wayne Airport will be accepting applications through Dec. 15 for the Airports Council International-North America’s 2006 Commissioners Committee Scholarship. John Wayne is one of more than 180 airport members in the trade association of commercial airports.

The annual scholarship serves to recognize students with high academic achievements and those who want to work in airport management or operations. Up to $5,000 scholarships can be awarded to up to three students. Applicants must be enrolled in a college or university and must meet certain academic criteria.

Interested students can visit www.aci-na.aero/scholarship.

Marketing company to promote building industry businesses

Costa Mesa-based Rodheim Marketing Group continues to be successful in attracting new clients and announced last week its new building and development industry clients.

The Moote Group, HomeX 2007 and Northcott Painting all retained the marketing company to help promote their businesses. The Moote Group is a Santa Ana-based company, HomeX 2007 is based in Long Beach and Northcott Painting is based in Irvine.