Realty Trust Buys Space in Thousand Oaks

Take a successful corporation, throw in a prime geographic location and preferred demographics, and the decision by officials of San Francisco’s TriNet Corporate Realty Trust to purchase two office buildings in a Thousand Oaks business park was a relatively easy one.

The year-end acquisition of more than 215,000 square feet of office space in the 50-acre master-planned Conejo Corporate Center, and the leasing of that space to WellPoint Health Networks brought to nearly 120 the number of properties owned by the trust.

And, like the other sites, located in 25 states throughout the country, the WellPoint property made perfect investment sense to officials at TriNet.

“For one, at least from our perspective, WellPoint is a very strong company, one of the leaders in the health-care industry,” said Jim Ida, a senior vice president of acquisitions for TriNet.

“Secondly, it’s very well-located for the type of use they have, which essentially is a call center to field claims and customer complaints and questions,” Ida said. “It’s an outstanding piece of real estate, in a good location, in a good community. It’s a great near-term and long-term investment.”

TriNet signed WellPoint to 15-year leases on both buildings.

One of the two adjacent sites, built in 1986, is a 106,560-square-foot, two-story building on 6.72 acres. The second, a 111,053-square-foot, recently completed two-story structure, sits on 5.77 acres.

TriNet purchased the buildings from Sanport Development of Newport Beach for $22 million. The acquisitions brought the trust’s total property ownership to 16.7 million square feet.

WellPoint already was a tenant in the original structure and was expanding into the newer facility. TriNet’s acquisition of the properties was typical of its business strategy--purchasing office and industrial sites from investors, developers and well-established corporations.

And to further ensure the safety of its investments, Ida said, the trust traditionally leases buildings in which tenants are likely to stay.

TriNet, a 10-year-old operation that went public in 1993, includes among its tenants Compaq Computer, Federal Express, IBM, Microsoft, Nike and now WellPoint.

“Typically, we buy prominent buildings that are essential to major corporations around the country,” he said.

The Thousand Oaks properties are TriNet’s first in Ventura County. Ida said TriNet plans to buy $150 million in property throughout Southern California in 1998.