Paul Lafrenz and Don Mitchell of the CBRE Private Client Group'sSan Diego Central office, along with Doug Matheson of the CBRichard Ellis Investment Properties Group, represented the seller,a partnership doing business as LMIP-2&3. The buyer wasrepresented by Kendra Parda and Roger Bashara of Century 21, Beach& Inland Realtors.

The Activity Road transaction illustrates one of the continuingcontrasts in the office sales world versus the office leasingmarket in Southern California, where office leasing in general hasbeen picking up but remains spotty in some areas. Office buildingscontinue to sell briskly, both those that are fully occupied andthose that represent value-added plays, but leasing flattened inSan Diego in the first quarter, according to the latest report fromCBRE.

The report showed that the county's office vacancy rate crept upto 9.8% in the quarter, compared with 9.7% at the end of 2004. Thefirst quarter rise represented only a blip in comparison with themarket's performance in 2004, when the vacancy dropped by nearlythree percentage points, according to the CBRE report. The reportalso notes that despite the slight flattening and relatively littleabsorption in the first quarter, average asking lease ratescontinued to climb, reaching $2.03 compared with $1.94 in theprevious quarter.