ORANGE COUNTY BUSINESS : Opus West Signs Accounting Firm to Irvine Lease

Opus West Corp. has signed accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to a 10-year, $22-million lease for more than 69,000 square feet of space on three floors at Opus Center Irvine, a 12-story, 267,000-square-foot office tower at Main Street and MacArthur Boulevard in Irvine.

The move will consolidate the accounting firm’s two Orange County locations at the new office building, which is scheduled to open in October. Two other leases totaling more than 21,000 square feet have been signed, according to Paul Marshall, an Opus West senior vice president, who said the company expects the building to be 50% leased by the time it opens.

Marshall said the leases indicate a continued demand for high-rise towers in the Irvine market despite the growing popularity of low-rise office space. Phoenix-based Opus West plans to build three new office towers totaling 930,000 square feet at the Irvine site in addition to the Opus Center Irvine project.