Meridian paid $417/SF for Pasadena Medical Office.
$13.35M. They leased up Huntington Physicians and got it to 82%.
At a glance
closed Aug 12, 2026
32,052 SF building
medical office
0.80 acres
renovated 1991
pre-lease execution
after Huntington Physicians deal
79.6% LTV, Zions Bancorporation
above ULA threshold
prior assessed value
What matters
- $417 a foot. California Medical.Confirmed August 12, 2026. $13,350,000. $416.51 a foot on 32,052 square feet at 55 E California — the California Medical Building. Built 1983, renovated 1991. 453 days on market.
- Meridian. Zions. No buyer broker.True buyer: Meridian Property Company (Walnut Creek) via MPVCA Pasadena II LLC. True seller: Young Properties after a 20+ year hold. No buyer broker. Listing broker Mark Shaffer. Zions financed $10,621,000.
- Lease-up plus zoning amendment.Sale notes: building was 52% occupied. Buyer locked The Huntington Physicians for 10,619 SF on floor two for ten years, taking leased-at-sale to 82.5%. They also got the city to amend zoning so that tenant could occupy.
- No cap on the print.No cap. No NOI. No ask on the CoStar print. Cap rate could not be derived from what CoStar locked, and I am not inventing one. Buyer plans lobby, facade, ADA, systems and signage work. Submarket sale PSF prints around $321 and this cleared above that at $417.
The Location
55 E California Blvd sits in central Pasadena, and within a short walk of the Pasadena Civic Center corridor. The submarket is one of the stronger office and medical-professional markets, anchored by Huntington Hospital about a mile northeast.
Pasadena's medical office vacancy has historically run driven by a dense specialist and physician-group.
The Setup
The building is a 32,052 SF, two-story medical office constructed in 1983 and renovated in 1991. It sits on a 34,848 SF lot.
What an Operator Sees
Meridian didn’t buy this building because it was cheap. They paid $417/SF.
Huntington Physicians signed a new 10-year lease for roughly half the building, taking occupancy from 52% to 82.5% almost immediately.
Meridian paid up, but they bought a much clearer income stream on day one.
And there’s another piece I like: Zions financed $10.6 million of a $13.35 million purchase. In a market where lenders are still selective, that tells you the combination of the asset, tenant and lease got them the loan.
My takeaway: the market isn’t frozen, it’s repricing risk.
Buyers will still pay a premium when someone else has already removed a big piece of the uncertainty.
For owners, the lesson is simple: you don’t always need to improve the building to increase its value. Sometimes you just need to make the income more secure by finding the right tenant to take a 10 year lease.
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Property and transaction data: CoStar Research.
Write to David Safai at David@AtlasBrief.La
Appeared in the Sept. 5, 2026 edition of The Tape.