Orange County Greets Tallest Tower : 21-Story Office Building Opened in South Coast Plaza
It has the busiest shopping center in Orange County, a major performing arts center, one of the county’s major hotels; now the South Coast Plaza area of Costa Mesa has the tallest and largest office building in the county.
Opened last week with ceremonies attended by an estimated 700 business and civic leaders, the $65-million, 21-story Center Tower is a key element in what the developers call the financial and cultural center of Orange County.
Center Tower, a 465,000-square-foot curvilinear structure in the 90-acre South Coast Plaza Town Center, is a development of Center Tower Associates, an affiliate of C. J. Segerstrom & Sons, which also owns and manages the adjacent South Coast Plaza at Bristol Street and the San Diego (405) Freeway.
Designed by the Houston architectural firm of CRS Sirrine and built by C. L. Peck Inc., Los Angeles, the office tower was carefully coordinated with that of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, also designed by CRS Sirrine and built by C. L. Peck. Both buildings share garden areas and are connected to a 1,200-car parking structure by a common glass-covered pedestrian way.
The architecture of Center Tower is curvilinear on the southwest side and sawtoothed along the east side to create a variety of corner offices with views of the Saddleback Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The exterior features solar gray glass and polished Napoleon red Swedish granite.
“Center Tower clearly represents the evolution of Costa Mesa into a metropolitan area,” according to Henry T. Segerstrom, managing partner of C. J. Segerstrom & Sons. He points to the tenants in the building as evidence of an “increased level of sophistication” in Orange County’s office market.
Tenants include: Peat, Marwick Mitchell & Co., E. F. Hutton, Spensley, Horn, Jubas & Lubitz, attorneys; Citicorp Real Estate Inc., Security Pacific Venture Capital Corp., U.S. Benefits, Natkin, Weisbach & Brown, attorneys; Nossaman, Guthner, Knox & Elliott, attorneys; Fairfield Venture Capital, Canon Capital--Home & Newberry, Laventhol & Horwath, American Medical International Inc. and Ward Howell International.
Another major tenant is the Center Club, a business club operated by Club Corp. of America. The club, with dining and meeting facilities, overlooks a sculpture garden on the building’s ground level and is the firm’s first entry in the Southland.
The building is about 40% leased, according to Richard Frost of Frost Trinen Partners, Costa Mesa, the leasing broker.
The construction lender was Glendale Federal Savings & Loan, while permanent financing was obtained from Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. The landscape architect is Peter Walker/Martha Schwartz, San Francisco.
