Montana Avenue Capital Partners purchases AppFolio campus in Goleta

GOLETA – An affiliate of Montana Avenue Capital Partners, LLC (“MAC”) purchased the three-building campus at 50, 70, and 90 Castilian Drive in Goleta, California for approximately $35,725,000. The property, which is 165,462 square feet on almost 11 acres of land, is currently 100% leased to AppFolio, Inc. (NASDAQ: APPF), a leading provider of cloud-based business software and services for the real estate and legal industries.

Located near the intersection of Hollister Avenue and Los Carneros Road, the buildings are central to Goleta’s desirable and flourishing Hollister Avenue corridor, home to LogMeIn, Deckers, and most recently, Google.

The campus had been part of the Towbes Group portfolio for decades. AppFolio began leasing space at this site in 2011, starting in 50 Castilian Drive, then expanding into 90 Castilian Drive in 2015, and finally leasing the balance of the campus in 2018.

Francois DeJohn, Steve Hayes, and Greg Bartholomew of Hayes Commercial Group represented Towbes Group, while DeJohn and Hayes represented MAC in the transaction.

“Montana Avenue Capital specializes in institutional-scale assets serving technology, media, and bioscience tenants,” Hayes said. “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, California with a regional office in Scottsdale, Arizona. “This deal marks our first acquisition in Goleta and nicely complements our existing portfolio of properties along the coast in Carpinteria,” said Steve Elson, Managing Director of MAC.

MAC first entered the greater Santa Barbara area in a notable way in 2015, purchasing the 121,000 SF oceanfront campus at 6303-6309 Carpinteria Ave in Carpinteria. Teaming with Hayes Commercial Group, they fully leased the campus to Procore Technologies and Continental Automotive. MAC subsequently acquired a 24,000 SF building at 6384 Via Real and leased that site to Procore as well.

MAC’s latest project in Carpinteria is the development of a new 83,000± SF creative office campus formerly known as Lagunitas Business Park on 8.63 acres at 6380 Via Real Avenue. This will be the first new development of office space in the city in nearly 20 years. MAC and Hayes Commercial launched pre-leasing of the project in Q1 2020.

The sale of 50-90 Castilian Drive was the top office property sale of 2019 for the South Coast market and 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.