Irvine : Mortgage Lender Is Buyer of Old City Hall

The unidentified buyer of the city’s first City Hall was revealed Tuesday after the $2-million sale closed escrow late Monday.

Quality Mortgage USA Inc., a nationwide mortgage lending company headquartered in Irvine, purchased the Irvine Multiservice Center building for expansion space, according to real estate broker Robert Mellema of Lee & Associates in Newport Beach.

Mellema said there was a high level of buyer interest in the 40,000-square-foot building at Jamboree Road and McGaw Avenue because of its central location and its zoning for both office and industrial uses.

“There was a lot of activity for this property, even though the market is down,” Mellema said.

The building was used as a City Hall and police headquarters until November, 1988, after the completion of the new City Hall on Alton Parkway and Harvard Avenue. It then became the Irvine Multiservice Center and was used to provide low-rent office space for about two dozen nonprofit agencies. The agencies have since been relocated.

The $2-million cash sale of the Multiservice Center is welcome news for city officials, who were counting on the sale to help the city cope with losses from the county bankruptcy. Irvine had $209 million in the county pool.

A Price Waterhouse accountant estimates that the city will need $6 million to refinance $75 million worth of bond debt that comes due this summer, if sufficient funds are not released in time by the county to repay the bond investors.