Potrero Business Center sold for $17.2M

Making its first plunge into the Northern California office market, Birtcher Anderson Realty LLC has shelled out $17.2 million for Potrero Business Center, a three-building, 134,444-square-foot office complex at 1740, 1750 and 1760 Cesar Chavez Street.

Built in 1986, the Potrero Business Center includes two, single-story buildings and one, two-story building and is 95 percent occupied by 14 tenants including Davita Dialysis Clinic, Aramark, Inc., Cupertino Electric and Graybar Electric Co. The center includes 167 off-street parking spaces.

Bob Anderson, chief executive officer at San Juan Capistrano-based Birtcher Anderson Realty, said the 4.5-acre parcel offers flexibility.

"It could be a future development site, but we also like it for what it is," he said. "We think there is a dearth of opportunities like this and see a very bright future for the property."

Including this latest acquisition, the company has acquired in excess of $170 million of property in the western United States over the past eight months.

Anderson said the proximity to the Third Street Light Rail, scheduled to open late this year, as well as UCSF's burgeoning Mission Bay campus, made the property attractive.

"We are watching with great interest all that is going on there," said Anderson. "We're plopping ourselves right in the path of progress."

Steve Corea, senior vice president of acquisitions at Birtcher Anderson Realty, said the commercial development sites will continue to rise in value as the furious pace of office-to-condo conversions continues to swallow up millions of square feet of attractive class B and C office space.

"San Francisco is also experiencing a boom in residential construction at the expense of potential commercial development sites," he said.

Ken Hulbert of GVA Daum Commercial in Newport Beach represented Birtcher Anderson Realty. Marcella Harrison and Tim Mason of GVA Whitney Cressman in San Francisco represented the seller, Potrero Business Center LLC.

by San Francisco Business Times

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