Pacific Gulf Buys Warehouses for $67 Million

In one of its largest purchases, Pacific Gulf Properties Inc. said Monday that it has paid $67.25 million for five industrial warehouse properties with more than 1.5 million square feet of floor space.

Company officials could not be reached for comment Monday, but it appears the purchase was funded from the proceeds of land and stock sales. Pacific Gulf has raised nearly $85 million in two separate offerings since January and sold an additional $45.8 million worth of stock last year. It raised $71.2 million in its initial public offering in 1994.

Pacific Gulf did not disclose who sold the properties.

The acquisitions all are in regional California markets where the Newport Beach-based real estate investment trust already has holdings and property management staff, said Glenn L. Carpenter, Pacific Gulf’s chairman and chief executive.

Pacific Gulf has been on a buying spree. It already has spent more than $35 million on industrial properties and $33 million on apartments this year. Monday’s announcement brings total property acquisition expenditures for the past seven months to almost $140 million.

In addition to its earlier stock sales, the company filed an application in March to sell up to $250 million in securities as needed to raise funds for land acquisition and debt repayment. In May, it said it had reached an agreement to sell about $30 million in preferred stock to a private investment fund in periodic installments throughout the rest of the year.

An Irvine-based real estate industry consultant, Ken Agid, said that Pacific Gulf’s activities signal ongoing strength in the state market for industrial and distribution properties. “It has been going gangbusters, with no signs of a slowdown,” he said.

Southern California and the Bay Area are prime locations for industrial and warehousing property because they are huge import and export centers, with major international airports and seaports.

Pacific Gulf said four of the properties it purchased are in Southern California--Downey, Chino, Fontana and Rancho Bernardo--while the fifth is in the Bay Area community of Fremont. The company said that three of the properties are fully occupied, one is 94% leased and the fifth, in Chino, is 87% occupied.