Brea Office Park to Tap Into Huge Labor Pool
With the goal of tapping into a large potential labor pool, a developer is pouring $185 million into a northern Orange County mixed-use development to be built out over six years.
Olen Pointe-Brea, a 1-million-square-foot office park in the city of Brea, was conceived by Igor Olenicoff, founder and president of Irvine-based Olen Properties Corp., to meet the space and amenity requirements of labor-intensive companies that will be able to draw a work force from Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The first two office buildings, a three-story structure containing 78,500 square feet, is available for occupancy this month, while a six-story building with 128,000 square feet will be ready for tenants in February.
The 34-acre project, located adjacent to the Orange (57) Freeway at Lambert Road, eventually will include six office buildings, four restaurants, a hotel and a six-screen cinema complex.
First-Phase Work
The first phase of Olen Pointe-Brea will include a 147-room Courtyard by Marriott hotel and two restaurants, T.G.I. Friday’s and El Torito. Total value of Phase 1 will be $56 million.
The second phase, including one of two planned 10-story office buildings, is expected to begin in mid-1987. Greg Brown, of the Anaheim office of Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services, which is handling the leasing, said that because the development is near the Orange and Riverside freeways and the large labor pool it can draw from, “Olen Pointe-Brea was created to appeal to insurance companies, financial institutions, mortgage firms and similar businesses with large numbers of employees.”
Greg Sherwood, another leasing agent with Coldwell Banker, added, “These firms will benefit from the availability of restaurants and a hotel and the project’s proximity to local financial institutions and the Brea Mall, which, with 140 stores occupying more than 500,000 square feet of retail space, is second only to South Coast Plaza in Orange County.”
Designed by the Santa Monica firm of Johannes Van Tilburg & Partners, which also provided land planning, the Olen Pointe-Brea office buildings are characterized by Post-Modern architecture, with exteriors consisting of three shades of Solarban green and blue reflective glass, complemented by rose-colored granite on the two lower floors.
Olen Pointe-Brea joins 44 commercial developments that have been completed and retained by Olen Properties Corp. since its founding in 1973.
The projects total 2.14 million square feet and have a combined value of in excess of $400 million.
