South Bay’s Pacific Center office building sells for $68.5 million

Landlord Bixby Land Co. has sold a Torrance office building called Pacific Center for $68.5 million to Dallas real estate investment firm Stream Realty partners.

Bixby bought the building at 21250 Hawthorne Blvd. for $52 million in mid-2012 and embarked on a renovation program intended to attract new tenants. The building, then known as South Bay Tower, was 63% occupied.

“We identified an excellent opportunity to restore the prominence of this building in the Torrance market and provide the kind of work environment that companies were searching for,” said Bill Halford, president and chief executive of Bixby Land.

The Irvine landlord spent $6 million on improvements to the eight-story, 300,000-square-foot building erected in 1988. Upgrades included removing land berms from around the building and putting in new landscaping with palms and olive trees and a furnished outdoor seating area.

Entrances, lobbies and other common areas were modernized with new light fixtures and water features. Available office spaces were turned into move-in ready suites ranging in size from 1,500 to 10,000 square feet.

The building is now 80% leased to such tenants as All Nippon Airways, Living Social, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Wells Fargo Insurance.

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