Bay Area-based GPR Ventures is on a mini-spree of buying older Sacramento-area office properties and giving them a fresh look.
Within the last few weeks, the Campbell-based real estate investment firm bought office properties in Sacramento and Gold River in separate transactions. In both cases, GPR plans new investments in the properties, said Kristie Kuechler, the firm’s vice president of asset management.
“We usually buy something at a good deal that we can clean up,” she said. The firm executed that strategy for another building a few years ago, 1900 Point West Way in Sacramento’s Point West submarket. After the improvements, Kuechler said, occupancy went from 50 to 90 percent.
Three buildings totaling 72,355 square feet were included in a deal the firm closed late last month. GPR bought the buildings at 1540, 1555 and 1560 River Park Drive in Point West in an online auction for an undisclosed amount. Records from research firm Trepp indicate that at least two of those buildings were bank-owned.
Kuechler said GPR plans to upgrade landscaping and painting for the buildings, which are about 75 percent occupied now.
That transaction was on the heels of another in early December, in which GPR bought office property at 11344 Coloma Road in Gold River from Club Center Investors LP for $8,62 million, according to property records.
Craig Brinitzer, an executive managing director at Newmark Cornish & Carey who worked on the seller side of that deal, said the property consists of eight buildings totaling 140,500 square feet.
“It’s an older project with a lot of wood siding and wood framing,” he said, adding the construction is from 1984. “I know they plan to come in and do some renovations.”
The office complex at 11344 Coloma Road is about 59 percent occupied. Brinitzer said he’s seen GPR active on several properties in the area with the same approach. At the prices GPR pays, he said, it allows the firm to make upgrades and attract new tenants at good rates.
The strategy is sound for both attracting new tenants and retaining the ones who are already there, Kuechler said. “Usually when we buy, the tenants aren’t super pleased with the way things were going,” she said.
Brinitzer and Curt Munger of Newmark Cornish & Carey worked on behalf of the seller in the Gold River deal. Todd Sanfilippo of CBRE Sacramento represented GPR in the purchase.