ONTARIO, CA-CIP Real Estate and its institutional investment partner, South Charles Investment Corp. of Baltimore purchased the Empire Towers II and III office buildings as an addition to CIP's earlier acquisition of the Empire Towers I building in June 2002.

Chuck McKenna, a principal of CIP, notes that the Irvine-based firm now owns all three buildings in the Empire Towers development. CIP and South Charles secured both debt for the purchase and the equity investment from South Charles through Buchanan Street Partners of Newport Beach, according to Buchanan Street.

Empire Towers II and III are two class A office buildings, totaling 145,239 sf, which were developed by Lord Baltimore Properties in 1999 and 2001, respectively. The two towers are 97% leased, with commitments out for remainder of the space in a submarket that has a 5% vacancy rate for class A buildings.