News-Press: Goleta campus purchased for $35.7M

An affiliate of Montana Avenue Capital Partners, LLC has purchased a three-building campus along Castilian Drive in Goleta for more than $35.7 million dollars.

The property, located at 50, 70 and 90 Castilian Drive near the intersection of Hollister Avenue and Los Carneros Road, is approximately 165,462 square feet on almost 11 acres of land. It is currently 100% leased to AppFolio, Inc., which provides cloud-based business software and services for the real estate and legal industries.

The campus is located near other businesses along Hollister Avenue, including the homes of LogMeIn, Deckers and Google. The campus had been part of the Towbes Group portfolio for decades, with AppFolio first leasing the space in 2011. The software services company then expanded in 2015 and again in 2018.

Francois DeJohn, Steve Hayes and Greg Bartholomew of Hayes Commercial Group represented Towbes Group. Mr. DeJohn and Mr. Hayes represented MAC in the transaction, according to officials.

“Montana Avenue Capital specializes in institutional-scale assets serving technology, media, and bioscience tenants,” Mr. Hayes said in a statement. “A campus of this size — fully leased to a successful and growing public company like AppFolio — is a great fit for them.”

MAC is a real estate investment, management and development company headquartered in Los Angeles with a regional office in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“This deal marks our first acquisition in Goleta and nicely complements our existing portfolio properties along the coast in Carpinteria,” Steve Elson, managing director of MAC, said in a statement.

The sale of 50-90 Castilian Drive was the top office property sale of 2019 for the South Coast market. It also capped an unprecedented year for office transactions in Goleta, which included nine sales over $10 million, five of which exceeded $20 million. Hayes Commercial Group completed all nine of the $10 million sales.

MAC made its mark locally in 2015, purchasing the 121,000 square foot oceanfront campus at 6303-6309 Carpinteria Ave., in Carpinteria. They teamed with Hayes Commercial Group and fully leased the campus to Procore Technologies and Continental Automotive. MAC subsequently acquired a 24,000 square foot building at 6384 Via Real and the site was also leased to Procore.

The latest local project for MAC is the development of a new 83,000 square foot creative office campus formerly known as Lagunitas Business Park, located on 8.63 acres at Via Real Ave. It will be the first new development of office space in the city in nearly 20 years.