By Elijah Brumback Friday, December 19th, 2014

Elijah Brumback

Atlanta-based retail real estate firm The Shopping Center Group recently opened its first West Coast office in Santa Barbara. The company is one of the largest privately held real estate services firms based on the East Coast.

Two Southern California retail real estate veterans — Mike Hieshima, Starbuck’s longest-standing real estate broker since 1989, and Philip Kyle, whose leased more than 4 million square feet of Central Coast retail assets — are leading TSCG’s west coast expansion strategy. With its first foray beyond the Mississippi River, the firm expects to top $2 billion in transaction volume for 2014.

“The acquisition of this team is a big step in The Shopping Center Group’s pursuit of a national footprint,” chairman and co-CEO David Birnbrey said in a statement. “We recognize this is only the first of many steps that will be part of a carefully thought-out expansion strategy that ultimately enables us to serve our clients from coast to coast.”

Founded in 1984, TSCG has 23 offices in 16 states. The firm expects to close more than 1,500 deals in 2014 to hit the $2 billion benchmark the company has set for the year. Its third-party portfolio includes leasing assignments for over 800 retail centers totaling 55 million square feet and management agreements for over 11 million square feet of retail property.

Word on the street
Once again, a prominent office property in Carpinteria is back in escrow. The building located at 5464 Carpinteria Ave., which was sold back to its original owner in July, appears to be trading hands again. The 52,000-square-foot property was listed for nearly $11 million. When the property sold in July, the brokerage firm behind the deal said it was valued at $8 million and was listed at $9.5 million. The current owner originally sold the property for $13 million during the market’s high point in September 2008.

In recent years the property has suffered from lagging occupancy and has more than 34,000 square feet of space still available for lease. The property also includes an adjacent vacant 8,000-square-foot parcel with commercial building approvals from the city. The deal is expected to close after July 7 of next year.

Paskin moves in
With the national apartment vacancy rate at 4.2 percent at the end of the third quarter, only slightly higher than the he previous quarter’s 4.1 percent, the high demand for apartments is still very much a reality throughout the country.
The Paskin Group, a Santa Barbara-based real estate investment and management company founded in 2006, is taking advantage of the high demand.

The company recently sold Wood Hollow Apartments, a 346-unit apartment community in Euless, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, for $ 17.5 million. Locally, Paskin recently purchased properties at 25 W. Cota St. and 530 Chapala St., accounting for about 14,000 square feet of mixed-use space. The firm has more than $130 million in multifamily and industrial real estate holdings.

“Our team is excited to make an entrance into the Santa Barbara investment market with our latest acquisition of the Cota and Chapala properties,” Paskin said.

Done Deals
• Rexford Industrial Realty, a real estate investment trust focused on owning and operating industrial properties located in Southern California infill markets, announced Dec. 10 it has acquired a five-property industrial portfolio in Ventura County, containing an aggregate of 408,224 square feet totaling $38.7 million. The acquisition was funded with the company’s credit facility.

“We are pleased to announce the acquisition of this high quality portfolio within the attractive Oxnard sub-market, the largest industrial market in Ventura County, where Rexford has a successful track record of operating and adding value to industrial properties,” the company said in a statement. “At 93 percent overall occupancy, this investment combines the benefits of stable cash flow from the highest-quality product in the sub-market with the opportunity to increase cash flow and operating margins going forward by instituting Rexford’s proactive, professional asset management program.”

The portfolio was acquired below replacement cost and includes five projects spanning 16 multi-tenant buildings on 28.4 acres. The portfolio was purchased from a private foundation liquidating its real estate. Collectively, the five properties contain 98 tenant spaces, with a majority of units between 2,000 to 6,000 square feet. Many of the spaces feature dock-high loading. According to CBRE, the vacancy rate in the 62.5 million square foot Ventura sub-market was 4.8 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2014.

• Craig Lieberman of the Apartment Investment Specialists represented an undisclosed buyer in the sale of a 20-unit apartment property located at 310 Hill St. in Oxnard. The sale price was $2.65 million.