Abbey Co. Buys 465,000-SF Project for $31M

CERRITOS, CA-The Abbey Co. of Long Beach has acquired the 465,000-square-foot Cerritos Corporate Center at 13810–13950 Cerritos Corporate Dr. from TIAA-CREF in the second major Southern California purchase this year by the Long Beach-based company. The purchase price was undisclosed, but industry sources estimate the deal at $31 million.

Abbey did not disclose the seller or the price on the deal, but the company says that it paid all cash for the property, which consists of seven multi-tenant office and industrial buildings that are 97% leased to 11 tenants. Abbey director of acquisitions Kurt Kaufman, who handled the acquisition process for the company, comments that the acquisition “shows our belief in the long-term performance of well-located in-fill commercial and industrial real estate.”

Abbey was one of multiple bidders on the property, according to vice chairman Kevin Shannon of the South Bay office of CB Richard Ellis in Torrance. Shannon tells GlobeSt.com that CBRE marketed the property to a targeted group of prospective buyers and that most of the bidders submitted all-cash offers. The sale demonstrates that, “Capital still has an appetite for well-located, stabilized, well-leased product that’s available at below replacement cost,” says Shannon, whose partners on the CBRE team that marketed the property were first vice president Scott Schumacher and senior vice president Rick McGeagh, both also of the company’s South Bay office.

The location was one of the reasons that Abbey was attracted to the deal, according to Kaufman. “Industrial properties in the mid-county area historically exhibit high occupancy rates due to its close proximity to the ports, freeway systems and rail arteries,” he said, adding that the Southern California industrial market remains “the largest and most attractive in the US.”

The acquisition of Cerritos Corporate Center follows Abbey’s purchase this summer of the 460,000-square-foot City Parkway office complex at 500-600 City Parkway West in the City of Orange from Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties. Kaufman notes that the Cerritos Corporate Center sale is one of the largest industrial real estate purchases on record in Los Angeles County for 2009 and that Abbey’s acquisitions team “constantly scours the market to locate and acquire best of class opportunities” like the Cerritos acquisition. He adds that Abbey has the ability to acquire substantially more assets on an all-cash basis and is seeking well-located office, industrial, and retail properties throughout California.

Shannon of CBRE says that although the volume of investment sales still remains much lower than it was when the market was hot, the velocity of transactions has picked up in the fourth quarter of this year compared with the previous three quarters. “There is more capital in the marketplace, but there is not a lot of product,” Shannon says.