MILWAUKEE—Hager Pacific Properties, a Newport Beach, CA-based privately owned real estate investment firm, has just invested $35 million in four strategic corporate real estate properties in CA and WI. The properties include Brown Deer Business Park, a 585,292 square foot complex on 32.41 acres in Brown Deer, a suburb of Milwaukee. This purchase by a significant coastal investor is a big vote of confidence in the Midwest city's industrial market, and perhaps a sign that more capital is on the way.

“We would have been more careful about investing in Milwaukee a few years ago,” Rob Neal, managing partner of HPP, tells GlobeSt.com. “But we've seen very strong absorption in the Midwest, and Milwaukee itself has a really good occupancy rate; only about 7% of the space is vacant.”

Company officials now consider Milwaukee a strong secondary market, but what really attracted HPP was the qualities of the property itself. “We are not keen on a property if it gives us only one option for an exit,” says Neal. But the Brown Deer complex will give the company many choices in the future. Its eight buildings, for example, could be sold individually or in groups. But before that, HPP is confident that it can lease up the property and establish an even stronger cash flow.