Michael Ross, a senior vice president with Colliers Investment Services in Los Angeles, says the $126 per sf deal involved office buildings in the Inland Empire submarkets of Ontario/Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino and Riverside. Ross and Fred Cordova of Colliers Investment Services, a unit of Colliers Seeley International, teamed with Tom Pierik and Dave Mudge, both in Lee & Associates' Riverside office to represent Arden, with the buyer representing himself.

The package included the 79,644-sf Havengate Center in Rancho Cucamonga; 103,708-sf HDS Plaza in San Bernadino; 47,634-sf Chicago Avenue Business Center I in Riverside; and 112,935-sf Centrelake Plaza in Ontario.

The Havengate Center is a two-story, concrete building at Fourth Street and Haven Avenue. Built in 1986, the property is 93% leased to such tenants as the State of California, Washington Mutual and the Royal Alliance Mortgage Corp.

HDS Plaza is a four-story, steel frame construction building in the heart of the Hospitality Lane corridor, near the intersection of the I-215 and the I-10 freeways. Constructed in 1987, HDS Plaza is 96% occupied by tenants including Metropolitan Insurance, Per-Se Technologies and the Farmers Insurance Group.

Chicago Avenue Business Center I is a single-story, concrete tilt-up building just south of the I-215 Freeway. Built in the mid 1980s, the property is 92% leased to tenants that include the County of Riverside, Pacific Bell Directory and Lucent Technologies.

Centrelake Plaza is a six-story, steel frame building in a master-planned office campus at Haven Avenue and the I-1- Freeway, about a mile from the Ontario Airport. Constructed in 1989, the building is 98% leased to tenants such as Allstate Insurance and the federal government.

Ross notes that the Inland Empire office market is one of the strongest suburban office markets in the US, having outperformed many of the more mature regional and national markets throughout the current economic slump. Vacancy rates for class A office space have been steadily decreasing over the past four quarters to the current level of 10.65% in the Inland Empire. Ross says limited sublease space, combined with a conservative amount of new office construction, reinforce the strength of the market.