GM’s Driverless Car Unit to Take 47K SF in Pasadena

GM Cruise has inked a seven-year lease for 47,051 square feet at 465 N. Halstead Street, a recently upgraded two-story office building in Pasadena. General Motors’ driverless car unit will pay $11.4 million for the space. CBRE represented the landlord, EverWest Real Estate Investors, in the deal.

In 2016, EverWest purchased the 239,000-square-foot property known as the Pasadena Business Center for $66.5 million from DivcoWest. Since then, the building has undergone serious renovations and now features creative office and collaborative space. The tenant list at the property includes PNC Bank, 24-Hour Fitness and Giant Magellan Telescope Organization.

CBRE’s Kevin Duffy, Natalie Bazarevitsch and Jackie Benavidez represented EverWest in the deal. Lisa St. John of LA Realty Partners acted on behalf of the tenant.

“This lease signing is a major win for the City of Pasadena,” said Duffy. “Capturing yet another significant engineering/technology tenant provides further evidence that Pasadena is an extremely desirable and ever-growing tech hub in Southern California with access to intellectual capital.”

GM bought Cruise Automation, a San-Francisco based autonomous vehicle tech startup, for over $1 billion in 2016. In May last year, SoftBank invested $2.25 billion in the firm through its Vision Fund. In October, Honda has also announced it will devote $2 billion to the effort over the next 12 years.

The driverless vehicle industry is on the rise. Google’s Waymo has recently introduced a small fleet of autonomous ride-hailing vehicles in Arizona and Ford is expecting its autonomous cars to hit the market by 2021. This could have significant impact on the real estate industry, as properties that command high value due to their proximity to transit hubs could suddenly lose their edge.