ALAMEDA — A big office building in Alameda that is fully leased to a fast-expanding healthcare products company has been bought by Bay Area investors in a deal that widens a remarkable property shopping spree in that city.
Nome Capital Partners, acting through affiliate Harbor Bay CA, has bought an office building at 1310 Harbor Bay Parkway in Alameda whose tenant is Penumbra, a maker of medical devices.
The building, which totals 127,000 square feet, was bought for $79.5 million, according to documents filed on Aug. 31 at the Alameda County Recorder’s Office.
Adam Lasoff, a broker with JLL Capital Markets, a unit of commercial real estate firm JLL, arranged the property purchase. Seth Siegel, a broker with commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, also was involved in handling the transaction.
srmErnst Development Partners built the new offices and then sold the building to Nome Capital, the county documents show.
The just-bought office building offers Penumbra a number of amenities: an outdoor courtyard, a conference center, a campus cafe, a coffee bar, and 391 parking spaces.
To help finance the purchase, Nome Capital obtained $49 million in financing from New York City-based Aareal Capital Corp., according to the Alameda County documents.
The Nome Capital purchase extends a dramatic buying binge for commercial real estate in Alameda that’s occurred in a three-month period starting in late May.
Three real estate investment firms, Milpitas-based Nome Capital, Texas-based Invesco Real Estate and San Francisco-based Paceline Investors have together spent about $311 million purchasing an array of properties in Alameda, all in the island city’s Harbor Bay business district.
Besides the $79.5 million purchase by Nome Capital of the Penumbra building:
— Paceline spent $129.8 million to grab five buildings in Alameda.
— Invesco paid $102.1 million for six properties in Alameda.
The Harbor Bay section of Alameda teems with tech, biotech, and advanced manufacturing companies.
This combination of firms is drawing heated interest from real estate investors who anticipate the tenants in the buildings will be able to enjoy long-term stability.
Alameda-based Penumbra appears to be an example of a life sciences company that displays a robust financial performance.
In the case of the most recent purchase by Nome Capital, Penumbra had previously leased the building before it was even constructed. The lease deal was reached in September 2019. Penumbra moved into the brand-new offices recently, according to JLL’s Lasoff.
Over the 12 months that ended in June, Penumbra earned $15.9 million on revenue of $671.4 million, according to the Yahoo Finance site. During the 12-month period that ended in December 2020, Penumbra lost $15.7 million on revenue of $560.4 million.
The Harbor Bay area is deemed to be favorable for development, in the view of Joe Ernst, president of srmErnst Development.
“Alameda has been a great municipality to work with, enabling us to expand Harbor Bay Business Park as it quickly becomes a hub for R&D institutions, primarily in the life science and med-tech field,” Ernst said.
