California’s Marin County has approved an $81.9 million plan to purchase a 328,000-square-foot mostly vacant office building from Bloomfield’s Cigna Corp. and renovate up to 110,000 square feet to accommodate a new county Emergency Operations Facility, The North Bay (Calif.) Business Journal reports.
The action the county Board of Supervisors allows county staff to execute an agreement with building owner CORAC, LLC, an affiliate of Cigna Real Estate, to purchase 1600 Los Gamos Dr. for $28.43 million, the paper reports on its Web site, citing documents presented to the board, The sale is set to close in December.
Then the county intends to spend another $53.1 million through early to mid-2014 on improvements to the building and nearly 24-acre parcel, furniture, fixtures and equipment. The facility will accommodate the Sheriff’s, Information Services and Technology and Public Works departments in 100,000 to 110,000 square feet of the vacant north part of the building.
Three major tenants –Â Bright Horizons, the IRS and THX –Â will continue to occupy about 55,000 square feet of the building. Cigna will continue to manage the building through the end of 2014.
Cigna foreclosed on the property in 2009 and brought in Sares Regis Group of Northern California to reposition the property early the following year. Cigna and the county were in talks about a significant occupancy in the complex for more than a year.
