A major land sale wrapped up last month in the San Gabriel Valley, as Monrovia Nursery Co. sold the final chunk of its massive local holdings to an Orange County home developer.

The Azusa-based nursery company sold 95 acres of unimproved lots in Glendora to City Ventures LLC of Santa Ana. The land is entitled for 124 single-family homes. The price was not disclosed, but sources close to the deal gave a range of $18 million to $25 million.

“This deal shows the strength of the real estate market in the San Gabriel Valley,” said Richard Byrd, senior marketing consultant at the Irvine office of Land Advisors Organization, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based brokerage that represented both sides in the deal. “There’s a lot of Asian money coming into the valley and it’s got very good school systems.”

For City Ventures, this is the third purchase in Glendora in recent months. The company recently acquired two other parcels on which it plans to build 140 townhomes. The company plans to break ground on the former Monrovia Nursery site early next year and have the first homes completed by the end of next year, Chairman Craig Atkins said.

Another draw for City Ventures is the Metro Gold Line light-rail extension. The first phase, now under construction, is slated to end at Citrus Avenue., just yards from the parcel’s southern perimeter.

The sale marks the final chapter of a 15-year saga for Monrovia Nursery, which back in the mid-1990s decided to sell its 600 acres of valuable land in Azusa and Glendora, and move its tree-growing operations to cheaper land in the central valley.

The largest chunk – 500 acres in Azusa – was sold to a development group in 2004 with entitlements for 1,250 homes, but that group ran into trouble when the residential real estate market started tanking in 2007. That property was headed to foreclosure until last summer, when Newport Beach-based PLC Land Co. and Fairfax, Va.-based Brookfield Homes Corp. purchased the note on that property from U.S. Bank. Lot improvements have resumed.

Doctors in Demand

In one of the largest medical office building sales in recent years, Atlantic Pearl Investments has sold the 53,000-square-foot Wilbur Medical Plaza in Tarzana for $14.1 million, or $266 per square foot. The buyer is a joint venture of Encino-based Ethan Christopher LLC and an undisclosed national pension fund adviser that has the majority stake.

Atlantic Pearl, based in West Hollywood, bought the three-story medical building –about a quarter-mile from Providence Tarzana Hospital – out of foreclosure in 1996. But the company determined that the building didn’t fit well into its existing portfolio, which consists mostly of hotels and commercial properties, according to Evan Kovac, a medical office broker in the San Diego office of Marcus & Millichap LLP, which represented Atlantic Pearl.

Once Atlantic Pearl placed the building on the market in October, 12 offers came in, demonstrating the high demand for medical office space, Kovac said.

Ethan Christopher, which represented itself in the deal, now has four medical office buildings in Los Angeles County; the others are in Encino, Inglewood and La Mirada.

“This is the first opportunity we’ve seen in nearly six years to buy a medical office building where the return on capital is commensurate with the risk,” said Mark Hamermesh, managing director of Ethan Christopher.

Worst Over?

There was a mood of cautious optimism on the real estate panel of City National Bank’s annual Economic and Investment Forum last week at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Panelists Rick Caruso, chief executive of L.A.-based Caruso Affiliated Holdings, and Ed Roski Jr., chief executive of City of Industry-based Majestic Realty Corp., indicated that the worst of the real estate downturn is over.

“The office buildings we have are all leased well and have been very stable over the past year,” Roski said. “On the industrial side, we’re seeing a lot of build-to-suits now, especially in the food distribution industry.”

Caruso said his company is beginning once again to focus on development. He mentioned an 88-unit high-rise apartment project with ground-floor retail that the company is working on near the Beverly Center at Burton Way and La Doux Road.

“When good properties come on the market now, there’s lots of competition,” he said. “That was not the case two years ago.”

But Roski said there’s still a long way to go before the market returns to a boom stage where buildings are built on spec.

“And we’re not expecting any anytime soon,” he said.

Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 227.