Colliers has begun marketing the senior loan secured by EY Plaza, a 41-story office tower totaling 968,745 square feet at 725 S. Figueroa St. in Downtown Los Angeles. The assignment is on behalf of the loan’s current lender. The debt is held in a single-asset, single-borrower securitization structure, and the underlying property is currently being operated by a court-appointed receiver. Colliers has set an October deadline for offers on the loan.
The marketing effort comes at a time when office investment dynamics in Downtown Los Angeles are shifting toward owner-occupier demand. According to Colliers, recent transactions involving organizations such as Capital Group, Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Southwest Carpenters Pension Trust, and L.A. Care Health Plan have collectively moved nearly five million square feet of downtown office space into occupant ownership.
Colliers notes that this change in buyer composition is influencing how investors and users evaluate high-rise office towers in the downtown core. Rather than treating Downtown Los Angeles as a single, uniform submarket for pricing, buyers are assessing each tower individually. Underwriting is increasingly focused on attributes such as specific floorplates, existing tenancy, and the potential for an owner-user to occupy a significant portion of the building.
“Buyers aren’t pricing Downtown Los Angeles as a submarket anymore. They’re underwriting each tower on its own floorplates, tenancy and owner-user potential,” said Sean Fulp, Vice Chair at Colliers. “That’s why two buildings a few blocks apart can trade at very different values.” This perspective underscores the growing dispersion in valuations among office towers that are physically close but differ in functionality, tenant mix, and suitability for owner-users.
Colliers has assembled a team from both its investment sales and leasing platforms to work on the EY Plaza loan marketing. On the investment sales side, Fulp is joined by Executive Vice Presidents Todd Tydlaska and Mark Schuessler, along with Associate Vice Presidents Jordan Garcia and Blake Hammerstein. The leasing efforts are being led by Vice Chair Matt Heyn, Executive Vice President Ian Gilbert, and Senior Vice President Kurt Davis. Together, the teams are positioning the secured loan and the underlying asset to a buyer pool that increasingly includes institutional users and public-sector entities seeking long-term control of their office footprints in Downtown Los Angeles.
