BLT Enterprises Buys 72 KSF Industrial Building in San Diego

By Ariela Moraru

Rendering of 5454 Ruffin Road, San Diego

BLT Enterprises’ latest addition to its San Diego portfolio is a two-story flex industrial building in the Kearny Mesa submarket. The company purchased the 71,862 square-foot asset from Apprentice and Journeymen Training Trust Fund of Southern California Plumbing and Piping Industry for $8.9 million. Magnum Properties and SD Realty Partners represented the buyer, while Commercial Properties Group and Voit Real Estate Services represented the seller.

BLT plans to modernize the 1981 property’s exteriors and add new mechanical systems as well as employee amenities. The building, located at 5454 Ruffin Road, will be brought to its original size—52,000 square feet. The new owner will remove the 20,000 square feet of mezzanine added in the late 1980s, when the asset was expanded into a two-story office building. This will result in an increased parking ratio of 4.25/1,000, up from from 3/1,000.

The property is just off Interstate 15 and routes 52 and 163, close to retail amenities on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. The region’s diverse economy includes healthcare, education, defense, construction, government and consumer product businesses.

“Kearny Mesa is San Diego’s largest and most dynamic R&D and industrial submarket,” said BLT Founder & President Bernard Huberman in prepared remarks. “The region’s tightening vacancy rates are rapidly driving rent growth and will continue to increase property values over the next several years. At the end of last year, overall vacancy in this submarket was 2.9-percent, which was the lowest in all of Central San Diego’s R&D and industrial submarkets.”

San Diego’s industrial real estate market is gaining momentum. Recently, Scripps Ranch Business Park, a nine-building industrial park, changed hands for $31.4 million.

Image courtesy of BLT Enterprises