Newport Beach-based Alere Property Group LLC has bought a portfolio of industrial buildings in Santa Ana totaling more than 1 million square feet—and it announced plans to build nearly the same amount of space in a pair of Inland Empire projects.
The real estate investor and developer recently closed on an 11-building portfolio of industrial buildings in the Harbor Gateway industrial area of Santa Ana.
The stand-alone buildings, which are between Fairview and Harbor streets, are a little more than mile north of the San Diego (405) Freeway. They range in size from about 36,000 square feet to just less than 200,000 square feet.
The industrial properties are about 97% occupied and include nearly 180,000 square feet of office space, according to Alere. Notable tenants at the buildings include Goglanian Bakeries, Honeywell, Airborne Systems of North America Inc. and Tailgate Printing Inc.
The properties were purchased from an affiliate of Portland, Ore.-based Pacific Realty Associates LP, and they were believed to be that company’s only buildings in Orange County.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
It is believed to be the largest industrial transaction in terms of square feet in OC so far this year.
Alere’s website said the privately held company, formed in 2003, has the ability to close on deals in excess of $100 million. It has bought and developed more than $1.1 billion in industrial buildings since its founding, primarily in Southern California.
Dominguez Hills
The Santa Ana purchase is the largest for Alere since late last year, when it bought the Dominguez Hills Industrial Park and University Commerce Center, a nine-building portfolio of warehouse and distribution buildings in Rancho Dominguez and Compton, respectively.
The price of that 2012 South Bay purchase, involving 432,361 square feet of buildings, was believed to be more than $40 million.
The Santa Ana acquisition nearly doubles the size of Alere’s industrial portfolio in Orange County. Other local buildings it owns include properties in Anaheim, Brea and Fullerton.
Two of those buildings, in Brea and Fullerton, are on the market for sale, according to brokerage data. An asking price for the buildings, which total about 640,000 square feet, has not been disclosed.
That potential sale includes $33.5 million of assumable financing, according to marketing materials from the Irvine office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc., whose brokers have the listing for the Brea and Fullerton buildings.
IE Developments
Alere also has an active development pipeline under way in the Inland Empire.
In Moreno Valley, the company recently preleased a 354,000-square-foot building it is developing to Corona-based Minka Group, a maker of decorative lighting products.
Construction for the 15.6-acre project is planned to start this quarter and should be completed in mid-2014.
Minka will relocate its warehouse and distribution operations from another location in Moreno Valley, according to brokers with the local offices of Newport Beach-based Voit Real Estate Services who represented the tenant in the 7.5-year lease.
In May, Alere announced it was also moving ahead with construction for another, larger industrial project in San Bernardino.
The project, called the Arrowhead Distribution Center, is expected to run 592,710 square feet and could be completed this year, according to the company.
No tenants have been announced for that project, which is near the intersection of the 215 and 10 freeways.
