Sandstone Buys Nearly 60,000 SF

DIAMOND BAR, CA-Sandstone Properties of Santa Monica has purchased the 59,746-sf Diamond Bar Village retail center from Kensington Properties of Tustin for $15.8 million in a transaction brokered by Phil Voorhees and Pat Scruggs of the CB Richard Ellis Private Client Group in Newport Beach, who represented both the buyer and the seller. The property is at Diamond Bar Boulevard and Golden Springs Drive, not far from the I-10 Freeway.Greg Sackler, a Sandstone Properties partner, tells GlobeSt.com that the company, which acquired the retail center via an investment partnership, sees substantial upside in the property, in part because of below-market rents. Some 70% of the rents at the center are significantly below market, Sackler says. Tenants at the center, which was 97% occupied at the time of the sale, include East West Bank, Allstate Insurance, Curves women's fitness center, Omni Realty, Baskin Robbins, and other service retailers and restaurants. Diamond Bar Village was constructed in the mid-1980s and was renovated in 2003 and 2004 by Kensington, which acquired it when vacancy was high, then boosted occupancy while renovating it. The nearly 60,000 sf that Sandstone acquired was part of a 103,000-sf property that Kensington Real Estate Group bought for $13.5-million in early 2003 in a joint venture with a private investment fund based in New York City, according to a GlobeSt.com report at the time. The Diamond Bar acquisition is the latest in a series for Sandstone.Sackler and Eri Kroch own and operate Sandstone Properties, a property management firm. Separately, they invest in commercial real estate, in some cases with high net worth individuals as partners. The two partners began acquiring commercial real estate in 1994 and own a portfolio of more than 50 properties, primarily in Southern California, valued at in excess of $300 million.