Beacon nears deal on sale of Disney Tower.

Beacon Capital Partners is close to a deal to sell The Tower in Burbank less than a year after acquiring the property.

Sources said that Beacon is in the final stages of negotiations with Tishman Speyer Properties to sell the 462,000-square-foot high rise at 3900 W. Alameda Ave.

The purchase price is expected to be $115 million, about a 15 percent return on the company's investment in under one year.

Beacon, a Boston-based company that runs three real estate investment funds, acquired The Tower in April, 2002 for $100 million. At the time, about one year was left on the lease of the building's main tenant, Walt Disney Co.

Since then, Disney signed on for another five years, a factor onlookers said eased the way for the quick turnaround.

"Disney's a world class tenant with world class credit," said a broker.

"You'll get rent until 2008, no if's, and's or but's, and it's a great location."

Officials at Beacon did not return phone calls for comment.

Officials at Tishman Speyer declined comment.

But locally, brokers said the deal is very close to completion.

"They're wrapping it up," said a source.

Such a deal would be consistent with Beacon's investment strategy. Unlike real estate investment trusts that buy and hold properties for 10 years or more, Beacon buys, develops or otherwise improves properties and sells them within a few short years. The company's stated strategy is to provide returns to investors of 18 percent to 20 percent on their investments.

The company also owns the Trillium in Warner Center, a 656,000-square-foot premier office property Beacon acquired in 2001.

The Tower, a 32-story class A office property, is the third largest building in the San Fernando Valley behind 10 Universal Plaza and Plaza 3 in Warner Center.

Built in the late 1980s, The Tower is thought to be the only concrete structure of its size west of the Mississippi River.

Its previous owners, Tochikogyo USA Inc., had offered the building for sale in 1999 hoping it would fetch about $115 million. The company had acquired The Tower in 1991 for $130 million.

But the Disney lease was a sticking point, and, with no buyer willing to pay the price on the horizon, Tochikogyo took the building off the market about six months later.

By the time Beacon came to the table last year, the office rental market had cooled and there was still no resolution on the Disney lease.

"When they purchased it, Disney had a year left on the lease," said another real estate executive. "That's why everyone was real nervous. Beacon went in and extended it for five years so now there's more value in it than there was a year ago."

At $115 million, The Tower would fetch $249 a square foot, well under the $316 a foot that the Nestle Building brought when it sold late last year and somewhat less than the anticipated sale price of the three LNR Warner Center buildings which are reportedly closing at $251 a square foot.

The buyer, New York-based Tishman Speyer, is an international company with a portfolio of about $14 billion in urban locations. Among the company's holdings is MGM Plaza in Santa Monica and Rockefeller Center in New York.

The company typically acquires landmark properties, restores them architecturally and upgrades them with state-of-the-art technology.