Younan acquired the 16-year-old, 12-story building at 879 190th St. in an off-market deal in a joint venture with Urdang Capital Management, an institutional investment management firm based in Philadelphia. The seller was Andrex Pointe Office Building LLC, which was represented by Kevin Shannon of the South Bay office of Grubb & Ellis, with YPI represented by Brian Hennessy Westridge Realty.

The Pacific Pointe property is only 65% occupied, but Zaya Younan, chairman and CEO of YPI, tells GlobeSt.com that the low occupancy won't last long because the Woodland Hills firm is already "talking to several tenants who could potentially take the occupancy substantially higher than it is." YPI is planning renovations and has hired Grubb & Ellis for what Younan describes as an aggressive marketing campaign. "We feel that once we have renovated it and repositioned it, the building will have a different image in the marketplace, and people will want to be in it," Younan tells GlobeSt.com. The building is in very good shape, he adds, but it needs some updating of its colors and materials.

The Pacific Pointe building becomes part of a YPI portfolio that has grown to approximately 2.5 million sf since the company's inception in January 2002. About 1 million sf of the portfolio is in Southern California and the rest in Dallas and Houston. Younan says his company plans to acquire another 3 million to 5 million sf of office property throughout the rest of 2004, with about 60% of that targeted for Southern and Northern California, the rest in Texas. Ultimately, YPI wants to build a portfolio of about 10 million sf and evolve into a public REIT, Younan says. The strategy is to continue the YPI business plan of buying underperforming buildings at favorable prices (75% of YPI's deals have been off-market transactions), then stabilize and improve the performance of the buildings. YPI is also a seller, having sold 1 million sf (12 buildings) of the 3.5 million sf (28 buildings) that it has acquired in the past two years after turning the buildings around. YPI's approach also involves closing a deal swiftly when it can buy a property off market at the right price, Younan notes, as was the case with the Pacific Pointe transaction, which the seller wanted to close within 45 days.

"Our focus is not just on how fast we grow, but on how fast we can digest an acquisition and turn it around," Younan says. Part of the YPI business plan is to reposition the buildings not just by improving the assets through renovations and re-tenanting, he says, but also through operating efficiencies that reduce expenses by 20% to 30% below those of comparable buildings.

YPI's partner in the Torrance building, Urdang Capital, manages both private equity investments and portfolios of real estate securities, primarily publicly traded real estate investment trusts.