Selected case studies

Different properties.
A considered approach.

Six assignments show how market knowledge, property decisions, and long-term relationships come together.

Historical examples. Results describe the assignments at the time; they are not statements of current occupancy, rents or availability, or guarantees of future performance.

Landlord representation

Repositioning space around the local market

35 N Arroyo Parkway · Pasadena

Historical assignment

The challenge

A 27,000 SF office and retail building was undergoing a seismic retrofit. Its second floor had been gutted, most retail tenants had left, and the proposed office configuration did not fit the sizes of businesses seeking space in Old Pasadena.

Our approach

MacVaugh & Company reviewed the floor plans and local demand, recommended a common corridor and a small finished marketing suite, and directed the leasing campaign toward design-oriented businesses and area brokers.

Result

All second-floor office space was leased within three months of completing the marketing suite, and building occupancy reached 95% at the time.

A leasing strategy can start with the configuration of the space—not just its advertising.

Property management & owner advisory

Connecting building improvements with management

650 Sierra Madre Villa Avenue · Pasadena

Historical assignment

The challenge

The 28,630 SF office building needed improvements to its restrooms, parking area, landscaping, exterior appearance, and common patio. Rents were below the property's market position.

Our approach

The owner worked with Hoss on a program of property improvements, including remodeled restrooms, fresh exterior paint, parking improvements, landscaping, and a patio with seating. MacVaugh & Company also took on property management.

Result

Renewal rents were brought to market while management addressed the needs of the property's occupants.

Physical improvements and ongoing management work together to support a property’s leasing position.

Retail leasing & revitalization

Introducing retailers to a changing downtown

Downtown Pomona

Historical assignment · 2006–2007

The challenge

A downtown property owner sought retail tenants to complement Pomona’s arts community and nearby student population as the district pursued revitalization.

Our approach

MacVaugh & Company organized a tenant walk, inviting prospective retailers to tour available spaces and meet landlords and developers who could explain the district’s plans.

Result

The assignment produced more than 8,000 SF of retail leasing beginning in November 2006, including a space of more than 6,000 SF leased for a bar concept. These figures describe the historical assignment, not current tenants or availability.

Showing prospective tenants the wider neighborhood can be as important as showing an individual storefront.

Landlord representation

Keeping a block of storefronts leased

2461–2650 Mission Street · San Marino

2018–2025 · three ownerships, eleven transactions

The challenge

San Marino has almost no commercial space. Mission Street's business district is a few blocks of small storefronts held by individual owners, and the city's use rules mean many tenants need a conditional use permit before they can open. Between 2018 and 2025 three separate owners on the same two blocks asked MacVaugh & Company to lease vacancies as they arose: a four-bay retail building, a two-building parcel that had been a single store, a two-suite building at the west end of the block, and a suite in a multi-tenant building across the street.

Our approach

Each vacancy was handled as a landlord assignment: marketing the space, fielding proposals from cooperating brokers and direct tenants, and writing the lease around the approvals the tenant would need to open — a beer-and-wine license and a dental use permit as contingencies, a connecting door between two bays subject to city approval, outdoor dining conditioned on government approvals, a roof penetration for a coffee roaster. When Huddleson Linens left its bay early in 2023, the florist next door, Coco, expanded into the space the day the old lease ended. When Port O' Call relocated from across the street in 2020, the owner delivered the two joined buildings with a new ADA restroom, roof and electrical rather than as-found.

Result

Eleven transactions on the block in seven years — eight new leases, two renewals (one with an expansion) and one lease amendment — for Zero Degrees, San Marino Cafe & Market, Huddleson Linens, Coco, Port O' Call, Apsara Coffee, Pizzanista, fullBRANCH and Me Dental Spa, on terms of three to ten years. Both renewals were for tenants MacVaugh & Company had placed. Lease economics are not published.

Where vacancy is this scarce, leasing is mostly about the permit and the building — writing a lease the tenant can actually open under — not about finding demand.

We still represent owners on this block. Nothing here is offered through this page; current availability is on the listings page.

Tenant representation

Growing Chalice Collectibles from one warehouse to a campus

Shamrock, Walnut, Railroad, Primrose and Pomona Avenues · Monrovia, and St. Joseph Street · Arcadia

2018–2025 · nine leases and one sublease listing

The challenge

Chalice Collectibles — then trading as CoreTCG — outgrew its Pasadena location in 2018 and wanted to centralize warehousing, with a showroom, in Monrovia's industrial district. Over the next seven years its business — retail stores and a growing online operation — kept outgrowing whatever it had just leased, in a district where freestanding buildings with loading and yard space rarely come available.

Our approach

Ryan Mitchell represented Chalice on every lease: a 7,600 SF warehouse and showroom in 2018; a second 5,400 SF building in 2019, after the tenant's first choice went to another user; short-term overflow space and a 14,500 SF freestanding building with a fenced yard in 2020; a 6,000 SF suite in Arcadia in 2021; and in 2023 and 2024 two adjacent freestanding buildings on Shamrock Avenue, about 37,500 SF on one gated lot. As the Shamrock campus came together, MacVaugh & Company listed the surplus 14,500 SF building for sublease on the tenant's behalf, and in 2025 placed the company's administration and marketing staff in flex space across the street from the building where it started.

Result

Nine leases and a sublease listing in seven years, negotiated with five different landlord brokerages, taking the tenant from about 7,600 SF to roughly 37,500 SF of contiguous warehouse plus separate office space. Lease economics are not published.

Serial expansion is a relationship, not a transaction: the same broker across nine leases meant each new requirement started with the district, the landlords and the tenant's operation already known.

Completed leases, 2018–2025. None of these buildings is offered here.

Tenant representation

Two first storefronts, two sides of Mission Street

1017 and 1020 Mission Street · South Pasadena

February–June 2023

The challenge

Two owner-operated businesses — Tarot Arts, a tarot-reading and retail shop, and SPLAT, a walk-in paint-splatter art studio — each wanted a first storefront in South Pasadena's Mission Street district in 2023. Both needed space they could open with light work (paint, track lighting, fixtures) rather than a build-out, in small historic buildings owned by individual landlords with different listing brokers.

Our approach

Madzie MacVaugh represented both tenants. For Tarot Arts' 1,400 SF shop in a mixed-use historic building she negotiated an as-is lease with a signage right, a renewal option and a right of first offer on adjacent rooms. For SPLAT's 1,870 SF studio, the former Videotheque video store, the lease had the landlord's shelving removed before delivery, kept the tenant's fixtures light enough that no building permit was needed, and tied signage to the City of South Pasadena's sign policy. The studio had considered an alternative in Pasadena before committing to Mission Street.

Result

Two five-year leases, signed four months apart and facing each other across Mission Street. MacVaugh & Company has worked this street and Fair Oaks Avenue from both sides of the table for two decades — landlord representation on office and studio space, including the 2020 lease that moved Kim's Hapkido, a South Pasadena studio since the early 1990s, into a former pet-grooming space at 725 Fair Oaks under a city use permit — and that record is on the South Pasadena market page. Lease economics are not published.

For a first storefront the lease terms that matter most are the ones about opening — delivery condition, permits, signage — and a tenant broker's job is to get those right before rent is discussed.

Both leases were completed in 2023. Neither space is offered through this page.

Your property has its own story

Let’s discuss the next chapter.

Discuss your property

Different properties.A considered approach.

Repositioning space around the local market

The challenge

Our approach

Result

Connecting building improvements with management

The challenge

Our approach

Result

Introducing retailers to a changing downtown

The challenge

Our approach

Result

Keeping a block of storefronts leased

The challenge

Our approach

Result

Growing Chalice Collectibles from one warehouse to a campus

The challenge

Our approach

Result

Two first storefronts, two sides of Mission Street

The challenge

Our approach

Result

Let’s discuss the next chapter.

Different properties.
A considered approach.