LOS ANGELES—Principal Real Estate Investors has acquired the industrial portfolio known as the March Business Center from a joint venture between Penwood Real Estate Capital Management and Western Realco for $93 million. The newly developed property was purchased in a pre-sale agreement two years ago and the transaction closed when construction completed on the property this month. The Inland Empire property has 1.38 million square feet and has two buildings.

“The seller's goal was always to monetize the asset in some way, and the fastest way for them to do that was to sell it on a forward or pre-sale basis,” Chuck Belden of Cushman & Wakefield tells GlobeSt.com. “We identified a buyer and then built the property, and over a series of various construction standards over the course of the process deposit money is made on a non-refundable basis. They then close on the transaction upon building completion.” Belden, Kyle Kehner and Tim Pimentel with Cushman & Wakefield's Inland Empire office represented the seller and the buyer in the sale.

The buyer agreed to pre-lease in August/September 2014, and construction started on the property the following March/April. At the time, this was one of only a few million-square-foot properties under construction at the time. “At the time, building a million square foot building was somewhat of an anomaly,” adds Belden. “I say that in light of the fact that there were four other million-square-foot buildings in various process of construction, and this building was the furthest East. Every single building that has been built in the Inland Empire post recession has pre leased or leased upon completion.”