IndyMac Moving Mortgage Unit to New Pasadena Site
IndyMac Bancorp Inc. will relocate its mortgage banking group within Pasadena as part of a reorganization tied to its just-completed acquisition of SGV Bancorp Inc.
The company will move its Web-based mortgage banking operations early next year from IndyMac headquarters on North Lake Avenue to a three-story building at 300 N. Halstead St. near Foothill Boulevard.
The 141,800-square-foot facility now undergoing an extensive renovation is part of an eight-acre complex known as Pasadena Corporate Park. IndyMac signed a 10-year lease valued at approximately $38 million with the business park’s owner, Kearny Real Estate Co., which is affiliated with real estate investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
Brokers R. Todd Doney and Nico Vilgiate of Insignia/ESG negotiated the lease on behalf of both parties.
Kearny purchased the property in late 1998, investing some $30 million into a venture that has included razing one of the three original buildings and extensively renovating the other two. The firm has entitlements to add a third building of about 100,000 square feet--which would boost the park’s total to more than 350,000.
IndyMac also retains an option to lease a 115,000-square-foot existing building, slated to be vacated next year when Xerox Special Information Systems moves to a custom-built facility in Monrovia.
Proximity to both Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech continues to attract high-tech companies to commercial buildings in and around Pasadena, said Phil Lombardo, a principal at real estate services company Trammell Crow Co.
The Pasadena vicinity’s accessibility and “quality environment” make it relatively easy for tech-oriented employers to attract skilled workers from both the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, added Carl Muhlstein, vice president at Cushman Realty Corp.
David Simon, senior vice president at Kearny, said the firm planned the Pasadena conversion to a “campus-style office park” precisely to attract a large tenant such as IndyMac.
IndyMac said Monday it planned to buy back $400 million of its stock over the next three years, prompted by excess capital and a strong liquidity position. IndyMac has already repurchased $133 million of its shares since the inception of its repurchase program last year.
SGV Bancorp is the parent of First Federal Savings & Loan Assn. of San Gabriel Valley.
IndyMac shares closed up 31 cents to $14.06 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.
