L.A., Pomona Industrial Sales Top 203,000 SF

In the $17.2 million deal, Lee & Associates reports that Jacob Kahobian, owner of Paper Source Converting & Manufacturing, bought two industrial buildings located at 4700 and 4800 Santa Fe Ave. totaling 180,932 sf. "The transaction was very complicated, given the current financial crisis in the credit markets," says Peter Bacci, a senior vice president with Lee & Associates' Los Angeles Central office. Bacci and Jack Cline, a senior vice president at the Lee L.A. Central office, represented the seller, Santa Fe Properties LLC. The buyer was represented by John Repstad and Mark Repstad of Binswanger Realty Advisory Group Inc.

Paper Source will use the facility to manage its new business operations. The company plans to improve the property to suit its manufacturing specifications. The site was previously home to Ivy Hill, a printing and media packaging company owned by Toronto-based Cinram International.

In the Pomona transaction, Seventh Street Development reports that the American subsidiary of China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corp. (Catic USA) has purchased a new 22,234-sf industrial building at Seventh Street's Mission-71 Business Park for $3.3 million. Catic USA, which is relocating from nearby City of Industry, was drawn by the new construction as well as Pomona'slower property taxes, according to Seventh Street's Craig Furniss. The building sale is the fifth this year at the 460,000-sf Mission-71.

Although the Catic transaction was not financed with SBA funding, Furniss notes that nearly all of the buyers at Mission-71 have relied on SBA financing. "We are finding that the credit crunch impacting the commercial real estate market does not appear to be an obstacle for owner-users looking to buy their own industrial buildings," Furniss comments. He cites "continuing ready availability of financing from the US Small Business Administration" as a large reason for the sales at the Mission-71 project. "Nearly all of the buyers have been owner-users with financing through the SBA 504 loan program," Furniss says.

According to vice president Melanie Smith of Bank of America, the preferred lender for the Mission-71 project, "Even with the credit markets in as much flux as they are, borrowers can obtain thesegovernment-backed loans for up to $10 million." Smith says that SBA Financing is an especially popular financing tool in a marketwhere credit is tight.

Both buyer and seller in the Catic deal were represented by Barbara Emmons, Lynn Knox, John Privett and Lyn Eisenhower of CB Richard Ellis.