The Irvine-headquartered Diversified Partners Inc. acquired the Palm Court at Empire Center for $14.8 million. The 29,890-sf, freestanding building M was sold to Oakland-based Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. for close to $1.7 million. Triple Net, which specializes in tenant-in-common acquisitions and dispositions, sold the properties, totaling 266,000 sf, on behalf of NNN Empire Center LLC and its tenants-in-common.

Tony Thompson, president of Triple Net, tells GlobeSt.com that the investment firm acquired its 266,000-sf portion of the estimated one-million-sf Empire Center shopping center in August 1999. At that time, Triple Net's stake included about 110,000 sf of empty space. Thompson says Triple Net filled most of the empty space in a value-added play, leaving only about 18,000 sf of the center vacant at sale time to Diversified Partners.

The single-story, brick center, situated at Sierra Avenue and the I-10 Freeway, has a tenant roster that includes Target, Mervyn's, Miller's Outpost and Ross Dress for Less. Triple Net represented itself in the sale of the Palm Court building, with David Lee of Faris Lee Investments in Irvine negotiating for the buyer. In the Building M sale, Triple Net was represented by CB Richard Ellis Inc.'s John Oien in the Ontario office and the buyer's interests were handled by Mano Leventakis in Grubb & Ellis Co.'s Ontario office.

Triple Net Properties manages a growing portfolio of more than 10 million sf of commercial properties with a market value of $1 billion from the Santa Ana headquarters and regional offices in Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, San Antonio and Tampa. The company currently is buying and selling properties throughout the Western US, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, Texas and the Hawaiian Islands. According to Thompson, the company has sold 33 properties in past five years that it has owned for five years or less, and 12 properties in the past 24 months owned for two years or less.