Santa Monica Apple Retail Store building sells for record $100 million

“The global appeal of ’s Third Street Promenade and the cachet associated with Cupertino tech giant Apple Inc. has made for another jaw-dropping real estate deal,” Jeff Vertun reports for L.A. Commercial Real Estate Advantage. “Two years after the glass-clad Apple store on the promenade sold for what was considered an eye-popping $60 million, it has sold again for even more. Bridgton Realty, a private family real estate business in New York, late last month purchased it for $100 million.”

“That means the 17,550-square-foot retail box sold for about $5,700 a foot, a record for a retail property in West Los Angeles,” Vertun reports. “Just three other retail properties in the county – all on tony Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills – have sold for a higher price per foot. The one-story built-to-suit building at 1415 Third Street Promenade, constructed in late 2012 on the site of what used to be a three-story Borders Books & Music store, has stone-paneled side walls, a glass façade and a 34-foot-high glass ceiling. The last sale of the site came in July 2012, when the Apple store was under construction. The buyer then was denim manufacturer Jordache Enterprises Inc.”

“The latest sale of the Apple site is the second time it has traded in four years, during which it has appreciated by more than 280 percent,” Vertun reports. “Jordache purchased the site from a partnership of Century City retail real estate firm Blatteis & Schnur Inc. and ASB Capital Management of Bethesda, Md. The partners originally acquired the building in 2010 for $26 million when it was still a Borders.”

“Jay Luchs, an executive vice president in the Century City office of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, said that even though Apple’s retail building is new and situated in a premier location, much of the property’s value comes from its sought-after tenant,” Vertun reports. “‘The sale says more about Apple than it does about the promenade,’ he said. ‘I doubt if there was the same size space next door for sale it would get close to that kind of price. The buyer gets bragging rights to have such a tenant in its portfolio.'”

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MacDailyNews Take:

I give [Apple] two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.David Goldstein, Channel Marketing Corp. President, May 21, 2001

[Attribution: Cult of Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]

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