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The local rentable footprint for Orange County’s top 16 commercial property managers dipped 1.5% to 127.8 million square feet, compared to 129.8 million a year ago March, according to the Business Journal’s latest research.
The top five third-party commercial real estate companies—JLL, CBRE Group Inc., Lincoln Property Co., Transwestern Real Estate Services and Irvine-based Essex Realty Management Inc.—managed 77 million square feet of property in Orange County as of March 2025.
Industrial activity shows the most promise, Paul King, CBRE’s senior managing director of property management, told the Business Journal.
“Industrial real estate continues to be the most active product type and offers the most property management opportunities,” King said in an email.
He noted that “some of the recent office building sales have gone to self-managing owners,” a market shift that has limited new opportunities in the sector.
“We are seeing an uptick in retail investment sales activity due to positive retail sales revenue and more favorable financing. This has generated some new retail property management opportunities,” he added.
Two property managers—Chicago-based Cushman & Wakefield and Tustin-based Coreland Cos.—reported double-digit growth for the rentable square feet they manage in Orange County.
Five of the 16 property managers—CBRE, Transwestern, Costa Mesa-based PacificWest Asset Management Corp. and Newport Beach-based Sares Regis Group—reported a smaller portfolio of rentable commercial square footage. Three firms—Brea-based Unire Real Estate Group Inc., Tustin-based Athena Property Management and Anaheim-based Cedar Realty Management Inc.— reported less than 1% year-over-year growth.
The tepid commercial real estate market could be attributed to policies out of Sacramento, according to Karen Flanigan, executive vice president at Costa Mesa-based PacificWest Asset Management Corp.
“California continues to introduce legislation that places additional financial burdens on commercial property owners through new taxes, fees and programs that often extend beyond the scope of commercial real estate,” Flanigan told the Business Journal in an email. “These efforts will lead to reduced asset values and diminished investment in California CRE. With a more business-friendly landscape, CRE can continue to offer favorable investment opportunities.”
The Business Journal this year decided to not include landlords who manage their own properties on this list so building owners can focus on finding managers who are available. Those owner/managers include Newport Beach-based Irvine Company, Santa Ana-based Caribou Industries Inc., Irvine-based LBA Realty LLC and Newport Beach-based Olen Properties Corp.
The Irvine Co. told the Business Journal that it manages 36.8 million square feet of its own space—a 0.27% decline from last year’s numbers.
Caribou, founded by Mike Harrah, reported it managed more than six million square feet of its properties, an increase of 9.4% over the previous year.
Upward Mobility
Cushman & Wakefield and Coreland Cos. expanded their Orange County portfolios by more than 10%. Cushman, which has local offices in Irvine, added more than 1 million square feet to the Orange County portfolio it manages, good for 11.8% year-over-year growth. Coreland Cos. added nearly 500,000 square feet of real estate to its portfolio, resulting in year-over-year growth of 17.9%.
Also reporting an increase in properties managed from its Orange County offices were Irvine-based Greenlaw Partners, which jumped 42% from 64 to 91 assets, and Transwestern Real Estate Services increasing the portfolio it oversees out of Irvine from 87 to 103, a climb of 18%.
“No significant changes in our company or Orange County over the past year, yet we have expanded in the industrial side of our portfolio, notably out of state in other markets,” the firm told the Business Journal.