SANTA ANA, CA-MDC Las Palmas, a partnership of Master Development Corp. and Buchanan Street Partners, plans a value-added play to reposition an 11-building, 240,000-sf industrial property at 1501-1609 East McFadden Ave. that the joint venture has acquired for $30 million. The two Newport Beach-based companies plan to capitalize on the continuing market for owner-user buildings in Orange County by redeveloping the 11-building Las Palmas Business Park into 50 units for sale.

Bruce McDonald, president of MDC, says the new owners plan to completely renovate the park with extensive upgrades in landscaping, hard-scaping, and signage, as well as the addition of new architectural entries to each suite. In addition to exterior improvements, the new ownership plans to refurbish interior offices with improvements on an as-needed basis.

Built in 1972, the property was formerly known as the Electric Farm Industrial Park. Its tenants include a variety of small to medium-sized businesses located in units ranging from 2,500 sf to 15,000 sf.

According to Bryan Bentrott, EVP of MDC, the property is well-suited for the types of improvements that are planned because of the low density of buildings to land area. Other factors that favor the project are its access from the 55 and I-5 freeways and its location within "a city with one of the largest base of multi-tenant parks in the county," Bentrott says.

MDC has previously sold more than 100 freestanding buildings to buyers in the Inland Empire and San Diego County. The company is known primarily as a builder of industrial and office parks in those two markets, McDonald points out, but he says that the company has increasingly turned its attention to acquisitions in the face of higher construction costs.

McDonald adds that MDC is now on the lookout for properties that can be bought below replacement cost, such as the Las Palmas Business Park. "The project is a perfect example of the types of parks we look to acquire." The Las Palmas Business Park is MDC's fourth acquisition since 2004, with plans to continue to acquire more assets like it in the future.

Rob Griffin of Lee & Associates' Newport Beach office represented both the buyer and the seller in the transaction, in which Buchanan is MDC's equity partner. The joint venture acquired the property from Calabasas-based Electric Farm LLC.