An Active Deal Sheet for the Thousand Oaks Commercial Real Estate Market

Southern California is home to some of the most lucrative and active commercial property markets in North America. Thousand Oaks, a charming city in the Conejo Valley north of Los Angeles, is a good example of a busy commercial market where big deals are always being proposed, negotiated, and closed. To get a feel for the high volume of transactions around Thousand Oaks, let's review some recent transactions:

The Oaks Mall, a refined shopping and entertainment center located off the Ventura Freeway, was recently put under contract by The Macerich Company, a real estate investment trust that manages prime assets like the Tysons Corner Center in Northern Virginia. According to a report published in the Los Angeles Business Journal, the deal was valued at $157 million. Details about the sale indicate that The Macerich acquired The Oaks in 2002 from the California State Teachers Retirement Fund for $150 million.

When The Oaks opened in 1973, the population of Thousand Oaks was around 74,000; these days, it is closer to 130,000. The property has gone through two major remodeling projects, one in the mid-1990s and the other in 2007. Anchor tenants include JCPenney, Macy's, Nordstrom, and AMC Theatres; the indoor/outdoor spaces measure a total of 1.3 million square feet, and it is a delightful shopping attraction that delivers a classic California mall experience. The property enjoys a special status in the city because many other malls across SoCal have been abandoned and featured in vaporwave videos, but The Oaks retains the charm of a vibrant and family-friendly mall from the 1980s.

A year before The Macerich Company announced the sale of The Oaks, another major player in the Thousand Oaks commercial real estate market was finalizing a retail deal. Black Lion, a firm that specializes in luxury hospitality and upscale retail structures, purchased a shopping plaza located about a mile northeast of The Oaks for $8 million. The anchor tenant is a Whole Foods Market that gets considerable foot traffic from the many luxury apartment buildings that surround the plaza. At the time of the acquisition, the seller was dealing with property management issues that brought the occupancy rate to 55%. Black Lion planned to remodel the parking lot, roof, and facade before rebranding it as an upscale shopping plaza.

Another item on the Thousand Oaks deal sheet involves The Collection at Janss Marketplace, an interesting multi-tenant retail project that seeks to attract some of the foot traffic from The Oaks Mall. Janss Marketplace is a neighborhood shopping plaza that has become more upscale as the median income rose in recent years; when a contiguous Sears department store closed in 2018, retail developer NewMark Merrill arranged an acquisition plan to build The Collection, thus adding 173,00 square feet to the 458,000 square feet of Janss Marketplace. Thanks to the proximity of a Regal Cinemas multiplex, which competes with the AMC movie theaters at The Oaks, NewMark Merrill was able to get Dave & Buster's as an anchor tenant. The next phase of the project involves a proposal to build a 216-room hotel next to The Collection.

Beyond retail deals, the Thousand Oaks market has also been active in terms of office space and business park transactions. One of the most interesting deals was handled by JLL Capital Markets, and it involved the acquisition of the Lakeview Innovation Center, home to major tenants that operate research laboratories. Marvell Semiconductor designs new integrated circuits at Lakeview, and Rawlings/Easton operates a sports performance research center. The new owners of the multi-tenant business campus are Alta West Partners and A2 Capital Management, but the companies did not disclose dollar amounts.

As a modern R&D campus, the Lakeview Innovation Center offers many amenities for its tenants' staff members. There's an Earthbar for gourmet healthy snacks, an Equinox fitness club, lounge spaces, walking trails, pickleball courts, and grilling areas. The center also features loading docks, warehouse spaces with high overhead clearance, and laboratory-grade HVAC systems across 276,529 square feet of office space. It should be noted that this deal is representative of how the commercial real estate market is being shaped in Thousand Oaks, a city that has been attracting companies in the biotechnology and life sciences segments.

In the next few years, market analysts in Thousand Oaks expect to see more demand for research centers, which means that new construction projects for properties such as the Lakeview Innovation Center will likely expand in the next few years. Biotech companies with offices in Pasadena and San Diego are planning to open research labs in Thousand Oaks; in fact, they are waiting for developers to complete new projects currently under construction. In some cases, former office parks are being converted into research campuses to meet the new demand for laboratory space.