American Realty Buys 123,000-SF Distribution Center

CERRITOS, CA-American Realty Advisors of Glendale has acquired the 123,058-sf Marquardt Distribution Center at 16028 Marquardt Ave. from Hart Realty Advisers Inc., which sold the asset on behalf of an institutional client. The transaction was brokered by Steve Batcheller of the Anaheim office of CB Richard Ellis and Rick McGeagh of CBRE's Torrance office.Batcheller and McGeagh represented both the buyer and the seller and also have been retained by American Realty Advisors to lease the unoccupied building. The Marquardt Distribution Center is on Marquardt Avenue at the I-5 Freeway, a location that McGeagh describes as "in the heart of the Mid-Counties submarket."The Mid-Counties submarket is so named because it includes industrial submarkets in both Los Angeles and Orange Counties, a location that especially appeals to companies that need to service customers in both counties and other parts of Southern California. The direct vacancy rate in the Mid-Counties industrial submarket is about 3%, according to the latest statistics from CBRE, with an overall availability of approximately 5.5%.The Marquardt Distribution Center is a single-story, concrete tilt-up building on 5.5 acres that was built in 1998. The building, which is next to the 24-acre master-planned Cerritos Corporate Center, includes nearly 3,000 sf of office space.Asking rate for the space is 51 cents per sf per month triple net for a tenant taking the entire building. The building is also divisible into spaces of 64,416 sf at an asking rate of 56 cents per sf per month and 58,642 sf at 55 cents per sf per month.Simsbury, CT-based Hart, which also owns a property of nearly 277,000 sf in Anaheim, bought the Marquardt building in September of 1998 on behalf of an institutional investor. Terms of American Realty's acquisition of the Marquardt building were not disclosed, but asking rates for comparable properties now on the market are more than $100 per sf.