MARINA DEL REY, CA – The former office of Carroll Shelby, the American icon who made the AC-based Shelby American Cobra and later the Mustang-based performance cars for Ford Motor Company, was sold along with two other office buildings for $10.7 million.
Brokers Patrick Ayau and James Wilson of Lee & Associates West Los Angeles, representing Amherst Real Estate Capital and Weston Trust, negotiated the sale of the 34,000-square-foot industrial/office property at 1038-1040 Princeton Drive and 1042 Princeton Drive in Marina Del Rey, Calif.
Built in the 1950s, and made up of red brick and high ceilings, the properties were purchased in January of 2012 by 1038 Princeton Drive MDR, LLC for $6.7 million. The same Lee team represented the buyer and sellers in that transaction.
The Luzzatto Company purchased the property and was represented by Mike Rago and Willa McNamarra of Beitler Commercial.
“One of the reasons the property sold so quickly is because the buyer saw the opportunity to satisfy its investment objectives as the market continues to firm up,” said Ayau, who added that buildings 1038 and 1040 are vacant but 1042 are 100 percent occupied. Ayau noted that the buyer wants to continue leasing it as creative office space.
The 1042 Princeton Drive address was the office Shelby occupied when he was in his Shelby American Inc. phase, which was the company that produced the Shelby Cobra. At that time, in the 60s, while the actual location of the office is in Marina Del Rey, Shelby used Venice as the city of designation.