When investment firm CenterPoint Properties acquired an industrial property in San Diego’s high-demand Kearny Mesa neighborhood for just over $80 million in June, brokers at CBRE noted that it was the highest per-square-foot price ever paid for an industrial building in San Diego County at around $395.
The sale culminated a process increasingly being seen locally and nationally, as older office buildings are renovated or completely torn down to make way for facilities that meet more urgent needs. In this case, that meant an industrial complex in one of the lowest-vacancy, low-supply industrial neighborhoods of central San Diego, which has been nearly completely built out.
CBRE said its industrial leasing team, including Bill Dolan, Sean Williams and Ryan Sparks, advised former owner LBA Logistics on a repositioning and redesign of the outdated former corporate headquarters facility, which included a partial demolition. The decision was made to construct a new warehouse spanning 106,0000 square feet and to renovate an existing office space of around 131,000 square feet to serve industrial tenants.
The overhaul was completed in 2024. CoStar data shows the property has since been filled by tenants including ventilation systems manufacturer Daikin, transportation services firm Maersk and vehicle supplies wholesaler U.S. AutoForce.
For its high sale price following an extensive makeover, a panel of local judges selected the industrial deal as the 2026 CoStar Impact Award for sale/acquisition of the year in San Diego.
About the transaction: Oakbrook, Illinois-based CenterPoint Properties acquired the property at 4400 Ruffin Road in San Diego from LBA Logistics of Irvine, California, for about $80 million.
What the judges said: Jeff Oesterblad, senior vice president of leasing at development firm IQHQ, said the seller garnered a strong return on a “rather risky” move to demolish an office building to construct a new industrial building. “Having a sales price of $395 per square foot for industrial space is crazy when nice office buildings are trading for less than half that,” he said.
The sale came after an “impactful transformation and creative conversion to meet changing industry demand,” said Richard Gonor, managing director at JLL.
They made it happen: Hunter Rowe, Matthew Carlson, Michael Longo, Brian Russell, Joe Cesta, Barbara Perrier and Eric Cox of CBRE.