Chasin says that the property's in-fill Orange County location,at the northwest corner of Harbor Boulevard and Edinger Avenue,combined with high traffic counts and rare scheduled increases inthe Walgreens lease, helped generate over 20 offers. He notes thatPegasus helped the seller, a Los Angeles-based private investor,evaluate the offers and ultimately selected the buyer, who closedin less than 45 days and already had financing lined up.

Fresh & Easy, created by British retail giant Tesco PLC, haslately been the subject of some controversy regarding its growthstrategies. "Getting people comfortable with Fresh & Easy wasan obstacle during our marketing process, but once investors drovethe site they realized the strong real estate fundamentals behindthe asset," Chasin says. The property was originally built as aSmart & Final store, then completely remodeled by SantaAna-based Red Mountain Retail in 2008.

"Investors are looking for safe places to park cash right now,and they don't necessarily want to go out of state to chase yieldlike they used to," Chasin adds. Both tenants had at least 20 yearsremaining on their leases. The buyer, a private investor, wasrepresented by John Repstad, Mark Repstad and Jim Abbott Jr. ofRealty Advisory Group Inc.