B of A to Keep Security Pacific Tower at South Coast Metro Center Until 1998

Bank of America will keep Security Pacific’s 12-story Orange County headquarters at South Coast Metro Center open until its lease expires in 1998, bank officials said Wednesday.

There had been concerns over the fate of the 240,000-square-foot Security Pacific facility at 555 Anton Blvd., near the interchange of the San Diego and Costa Mesa freeways, because B of A’s Orange County headquarters is several blocks away at 3233 Park Center Drive in Costa Mesa. Abandoning that much space would have been a blow to the South Coast office market, where vacancy rates are about 20%.

Instead, Bank of America has relocated an unspecified number of employees to the South Coast Metro Center from its other Costa Mesa offices as leases have expired since the merger became official in April. A spokesman said that the bank now has about 900 employees at the Metro Center, about 20% more than before the merger.

Bank of America now occupies more than 75% of the former Security Pacific building, and the remaining space is subleased. The facility will continue to house administrative and operational services.

Bank officials said, however, that they would be “carefully reviewing” their options on what to do with the space when the 10-year, $55-million lease expires in September, 1998.

“One of the bank’s basic business objectives with regard to its corporate real estate portfolio is to locate people and operations in facilities that are the most efficient and cost-effective to operate over extended periods of time,” said Dan Costello, Bank of America’s executive vice president in the corporate real estate division.

Bank officials already had announced that a Security Pacific branch on the ground floor of the Metro Center would be relocated to the Bank of America South Coast Financial Center on Park Center Drive on Feb. 19. A decision on staffing levels at the new branch has not been made.

In Orange County, Bank of America will close 40 of 129 branches--including former Security Pacific locations--many this month and next.

The former Security Pacific Gallery, an art gallery at the South Coast Metro Center, also will remain open as the renamed BankAmerica South Coast Metro Gallery. Exhibits at the gallery, which is open weekdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., are now culled from the combined collection of the banks.

The $37-million tower, bearing the Security Pacific logo at the top, was completed in 1988 and was jointly developed by Torrance-based Transpacific Development Co. and Security Pacific. Bank of America remains a partner and tenant in the building.

The building was one of three office structures built in the 1980s as part of the Metro Center, although Security Pacific had no involvement in the development of the other two structures.