The portfolio, which totals 704,000 square feet, is 88.1% leased with an average customer size of 15,900 square feet, according to the Glendale, Calif.-based REIT, which was a spin-off from Public Storage Inc. The acquisition adds three new business parks to the company's existing portfolio in Austin, while expanding its presence in an existing business park.

With the acquisition, PS Business Parks' Austin portfolio totals 1.5 million square feet of multi-tenant flex space in nine separate business parks. It made another large acquisition in Austin in 1999 when it acquired 12 buildings totaling 556,000 square feet of space in the Northeast Austin area. The REIT also has a number of assets in Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston.

The recent Austin acquisition is the REIT's second major purchase this year. In January, PS Business Parks bought Shady Grove Executive Center, a 350,000-square foot, multi-tenant office business park in Rockville, Md. The park, which traded in an all-cash transaction for $60 million, was 80% leased to 17 tenants in three separate four and five story buildings.

Currently, PS Business Parks owns 20.5 million rentable square feet in eight states. The bulk of its assets are located in California, Florida, Texas, Virginia and Maryland.