WESTMINSTER, CA-Rreef has acquired a 257,674-sf industrial building near the San Diego Freeway from an East Coast-based pension fund adviser and plans to modernize the 37-year-old structure in a renovation and repositioning play. SVP Steve Batcheller in the Newport Beach office of CB Richard Ellis tells GlobeSt.com that the building, which is at 7400 Hazard Ave., is now vacant and that Rreef plans extensive upgrades to the property.

Batcheller, who headed a CBRE team that marketed the property on behalf of the seller, tells GlobeSt.com that Rreef plans to tear out the existing office space, add new offices and windows, add new truck doors, upgrade the sprinkler system, replace the roof and complete other upgrades to both the inside and the outside of the property. Others on the CBRE team included Brian DeRevere of Anaheim, Bob Goodmanson of Newport Beach and Paul Jones of Newport Beach.

DeRevere and Goodmanson have the leasing assignment for the building, which is a single-story concrete tilt-up structure in an industrially zoned area less than half a mile from the San Diego Freeway. The combination of upgrades and the location should draw significant tenant interest, Batcheller says.

Terms of the Rreef acquisition were not disclosed. Industry sources familiar with the bidding on the property say that pricing was in the neighborhood of $20 million. The property drew 16 offers from prospective buyers, an indication of the strong investor appetite for industrial properties in Orange County, where industrial vacancy remains low and lease rates have been climbing.

The overall availability rate of industrial space in the county dipped to 4.9% in the third quarter, according to the latest CBRE market report, while the direct vacancy stood at 2.7%. Average asking lease rates for the manufacturing and warehousing sector of the county's industrial buildings climbed to 63 cents in the third quarter, up from 56 cents on a year-over-year basis, according to the CBRE report.

The property that Rreef is renovating is one of 1,066 buildings totaling 38.3 million sf in the West Orange County industrial submarket. In addition to Westminster, the West County submarket includes the cities of Cypress, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach and Stanton.