The new Arden acquisitions, which total approximately 571,500 sf, include the $107.5-million purchase of five Layton Belling buildings at two properties, Towne Centre Plaza in Foothill Ranch and Airport Technology Center in Phoenix. Towne Centre Plaza consists of three buildings totaling 205,077 sf at 26632, 26642 and 26672 Towne Centre Dr.; Airport Technology Center comprises two buildings totaling 196,501 sf at 4127 and 4129 E. Van Buren St.

The sixth building is the deal with Torrance-based Transpacific, in which Arden bought a 169,926-sf building and five-story parking structure at 17777 Center Court Dr. in Cerritos that Transpacific completed in 2002. The Center Court Drive property, which is on a ground lease with the Cerritos Redevelopment Agency, is the ninth Cerritos office building to trade in recent months and the 10th this year.

Robert Peddicord, chief operating officer at Arden, tells GlobeSt.com that the properties represent value-added opportunities for Arden, which in addition to expanding geographically is pursuing more value-added deals. The value-added play on both of the LBA properties is that both will have significant lease roll-over in the next year, Peddicord says.

"Our value-added play is going to be either where there is lease-up or there is significant roll in a market where there is rent growth," Peddicord says. He notes that the Phoenix property is the first of many acquisitions in new markets expected in coming months as part of the company's targeted expansion beyond its Southern California portfolio.

As Arden said last week when it announced the $162-million acquisition of a San Diego office building portfolio, new owner GE Real Estate plans to expand the Arden portfolio beyond its Southern California origins. Joaquin De Monet, president and CEO of Arden, told GlobeSt.com at the time that the deal marked the beginning of an expansion by Arden that will take the company to new markets in Northern California, the Pacific Northwest and Arizona.

The sale of the Cerritos building also reflects the strategy that Transpacific has been pursuing. Tom Irish, president of Transpacific, explains to GlobeSt.com that the Torrance-based company has been divesting its California assets for some time and has traded into warehouse buildings in other markets.

Although Transpacific still owns assets in California, the Cerritos building was the last California asset that Transpacific had both developed and owned. "We've been in California for 52 years, and this is the first time that there's nothing that we developed here that we own," Irish says.

Irish tells GlobeSt.com that the decision to sell 17777 Center Court Dr. represents a continuation of Transpacific's move out of California office buildings into large warehouses in other markets and also was "based upon the attractive pricing of California office properties." He says that Transpacific, which sold the building as part of a 1031 exchange, will redeploy the proceeds into Midwestern warehouses.

Irish notes that the 17777 Center Court Dr. property is the latest of 10 Cerritos office buildings that have sold this year, all but one or two of them in the past 60 days. He adds that the properties that have traded are "the best office buildings in the market."

Arden was represented by Peddicord and acquisitions director Doug Campbell in all of the transactions. On the two LBA deals, the seller was represented by CB Richard Ellis vice chairman Kevin Shannon with EVPs Robert Smith and James Fijan, and SVP Michael Kane. In the Cerritos transaction, Transpacific was represented by Bill Palmer of the Palmer Team in Sacramento.