Acquisition Partners Ltd. and Lerhner Pasadena Ltd. have acquired the holding at 4001 Preston Ave. from Dallas-based CIR-Pasadena I Ltd. Medical facilities are one of this year's hot tickets with investors.

Larry Marks, senior vice president of the Houston office of Betz Commercial Brokerage Inc., represented the seller. He tells GlobeSt.com that the product gives identity to a physician's practice plus comes with the required expensive TIs. Office moves, he adds, can be devastating to a doctor's patient base. Marks spends about 40% of his time working with medical buildings all over the country.

Bayside Medical Center teams medical offices with a surgery center. The seller acquired the building a few years ago and set about converting and expanding a 30,000-sf Food Lion grocery store into a medical facility. CIR-Pasadena took the structure back to shell condition and worked forward on the interior changes, completing it in 2000. Today, it's 100% occupied. A 10,500-sf SurgiCare serves as the anchor. Marks says all of the leases are triple net and many run through 2016.

The property is located east of the intersection of Fairmont Parkway and Beltway 8 in what Marks terms "Pasadena's explosive growth corridor." While Pasadena is best known as a blue-collar petrochemical town, Marks says the million sf of retail put in by Trammell Crow and the explosive growth have created a new more affluent demographic base.

Marks says the sale took about six months to close. He's mum on the sales price, but the asking price was $8.5 million. Interest ran high, with five bidders plunking down serious proposals.