BURLINGAME, CA-In a deal described by principals as one of the largest industrial transactions in San Mateo County in recent years, Denver-based DCT Industrial Trust paid $35-million for a 255,000-square-foot warehouse in this Northern California city.

The property was a sought after asset that Mike Davis, a Grubb & Ellis  vice president, who helped broker the deal, describes in a statement as “the crown jewel of the San Francisco Peninsula.”

The sale is remarkable both for its scale, it is considered one of the largest three largest industrial transactions in this Bay Area city just south of San Francisco in recent years.

CT bought the building using an Umbrella Partnership REIT structure, according to Grubb & Ellis. This complex type of transaction which involves transferring the asset to an operating company in which the REIT has controlling interest, has been increasingly popular in recent years, because the sale does not qualify as a taxable event.

Calls both to Grubb & Ellis and DCT for further information were not answered by deadline.

The multi-tenant facility is fully leased to the US Postal Service, Mills-Peninsula Health Services and Classic Party Rentals. The building is located near the San Francisco International Airport and U.S. Route 101. A company statement said DCT had purchased the warehouse as “long-term hold.”

In addition to Davis, J.P. Custodio, Michael Draeger, Seth McKinnon and Michael Taquino of Grubb & Ellis represented DCT in the deal, while the seller, the Pauls Corp., of Aurora, CO represented itself.         

 (Apologies to Michael Draeger, who was incorrectly identified in an earlier version of this story.)