While plenty of technology companies are still clamoring for space in hot Silicon Beach locales such as Santa Monica, others are content to stay a bit farther afield. Madison Partners represented online retailer, JustFab Inc., headquartered in El Segundo, when it recently reupped its commitment to the area. The fashion subscription service signed a 15-year lease with Madison Partners earlier this month for more than 97,000 square feet at 800 Apollo St., a two-story office building just around the corner from the company’s current space at 2301 Rosecrans Ave.
Industry sources estimate the lease, which includes heavy tenant improvement concessions, was valued at about $55 million.
Adam Goldenberg, co-founder and co-chief executive of JustFab, said the company, which merged with online subscription retailer ShoeDazzle Inc. in the summer, had run out of space. Plus, he wanted to consolidate the united companies’ more than 300 employees onto one campus.
“The new place is walking distance from our current space, so it worked out well for our employees,” he said. “We love the area we’re in and we think the South Bay is going to be attracting a lot more tech companies in the coming years.”
Landlords Invesco Real Estate of Newport Beach and Second Street Ventures of Burbank are predicting the same. Together the tow firms bough tthe 800 Apollo property from El Segundo’s Continental Development Corp. in late summer in a $57 million portfolio sale that included four other nearby buildings.
Jack Spound, a principal of Second Street, said the companies plan to spend many millions to redevelop the five buildings into top-tier creative office spaces.
We’re putting in significant dollars to change the character of these buildings,” he said. “we’re putting in all new equipment ,windows, doorways, lobbies. We’re even putting in locker rooms with showers because we’re finding more and more people are riding their bikes to work.”
Goldenberg said he expects to get access to the place this summer to begin building out the space and move in before the end of the year. He plans to invest more than $10 million in the space, which will include a full bar, kitchen and outdoor workspaces.
The new space will almost double the tech company’s corporate footprint. JustFab currently occupies about 35,000 square feet in El Segundo and ShoeDazzle occupies 20,000 square feet in Santa Monica.
