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Newcastle bets on Shadelands, buys 197000 SF of office in Walnut Creek

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 09:48:20 +0000

Newcastle Partners expects to sign more leases soon in Centre Pointe, a 197,000-square-foot office complex in Walnut Creek that the firm recently bought.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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Newcastle Partners is betting that the Shadelands Business Park, a long struggling office submarket in Walnut Creek, is poised to make a comeback.

The San Francisco-based investor and developer recently snapped up Centre Pointe, a six-building, 197,000-square-foot office complex at 165 – 215 Lennon Lane, from seller Sun Life Financial, which has partnered with Newcastle on other projects.

The price was estimated at close to $21 million or $105 to $110 per square foot, according to Cornish Carey Commercial Newmark Knight Frank.

Dennis Higgins, managing partner of Newcastle, said he expects Shadelands to see more leasing and activity from healthcare tenants and Safeway Inc.’s proposed, 25-acre retail and senior housing project (read more here).

“The basis for which we were able to purchase Center Pointe was very attractive,” Higgs said. “Historically, the Shadelands hasn’t been the most popular submarket, but we think that with an aggressive basis and all the changes in the neighborhood, it’s going to be an attractive area.”

Newcastle, founded in 1999 by Higgs, owns office and industrial properties throughout California and tends to go after value-add properties in the Bay Area.

Center Pointe was 85 percent leased at the time of the deal and Newcastle expects to sign on new tenants soon.

In the past year, the firm has picked up properties including the 80,000-square-foot 246 First St. in San Francisco with partner Stockbridge Capital Group, the 225,000-square foot Great America Place office complex in Santa Clara and a few small buildings in San Francisco’s Jackson Square area.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/07/newcastle-bets-on-shadelands-buys.html

Bay Area non-tech companies were more profitable than their technology …

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:57:50 +0000

When it comes to profits, the Bay Area’s non-technology companies outdid their technology counterparts in the SV150.

The Bay Area 25 powered to a 7.3 percent gain in profits over the 12 months that ended in March. In contrast, profits for the SV150 slumped 12.4 percent during the same period, this newspaper’s analysis of the financial performance of hundreds of Bay Area companies shows.

Companies that are household names in Corporate America and the consciousness of consumers dominate the non-tech Bay Area 25.

Among them: San Ramon-based Chevron, Pleasanton-based Safeway, Oakland-based Clorox, Pleasanton-based Ross Stores, along with Wells Fargo, PGE, Gap and Visa, all based in San Francisco.

“These are some big companies that directly affect people’s lives,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

Yet the rising profits don’t necessarily mean sales were robust for the non-tech Bay Area 25.

While the SV150 as a group generated a sturdy 9.1 percent increase in sales over the one-year stretch, the Bay Area 25 eked out a puny 0.3 percent gain in sales.

“The non-technology companies were able to capture revenue without having internal higher labor costs and other overhead,” said Michael Yoshikami, chief executive and founder of Walnut Creek-based Destination Wealth Management. “That means increased profitability.”

The profitability of the companies in

the Bay Area 25 also appears to reflect what is happening in Corporate America in general.

“In the non-tech economy, hiring has been very tight,” Yoshikami said. “Non-tech companies have steadily increased their efficiency.”

The non-tech Bay Area 25 also includes numerous banks. And for a growing number of banks, the financial crisis and sour loans that accompanied the downturn have become specks in the respective rearview mirrors of the financial companies.

“With the rebound in the housing sector, banks have been working through some of their financial problems and bad loans,” said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Stockton-based Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific.

Numerous banks have shifted money out of the reserves they had maintained to cover bad loans and allowed the money to flow onto their bottom lines. That has helped to bolster profits.

An analysis of the results shows that financial companies in the Bay Area 25 performed particularly well in the non-tech group.

Of the 11 companies that powered to double-digit increases, eight were in the financial, investment or real estate business. Chevron, Clorox and Pleasanton-based contact lens producer Cooper Cos. were the other three.

Two companies in the Bay Area 25 suffered an erosion in earnings. Profits tumbled 9 percent for San Francisco-based Diamond Foods, a supplier of nuts and snack foods; and by 2 percent for San Francisco-based Prologis, a real estate investment firm that owns numerous industrial properties.

The company in the group with the strongest results for sales was Walnut Creek-based Central Garden Pet, which provides pet, lawn and garden products. Central Garden produced a 73 percent increase in sales.

Santa Clara-based SVB Financial Group, Pleasanton-based Simpson Manufacturing, Chevron and San Francisco-based Digital Realty Trust rounded out the top five for gains in revenue.

“The performance of the non-tech companies shows there is a lot of stuff going on outside of Silicon Valley,” Levy said. “They employ a lot of people. They serve a lot of customers.”

Contact George Avalos at 408-373-3556 or 925-977-8477. Follow him at twitter.com/george_avalos.

Article source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_23064540/bay-area-non-tech-companies-were-more-profitable