Brentwood-based Rexford Industrial Realty Inc. has purchased eight industrial buildings for a total of $194.4 million.

The properties total 629,224 square feet, and Rexford purchased them using cash on hand.

“These investments, acquired through off-market transactions, demonstrate the  company’s programmatic and proprietary approach to identifying exceptionally well-located, off-market investment opportunities with substantial, above-market return on investment and cash-flow growth within infill Southern California, the nation’s lowest-supply and highest-demand industrial market,” Howard Schwimmer and Michael Frankel, Rexford co-chief executives, said in a statement.
 
Year to date, the company has completed $779 million of acquisitions and has $600 million of other investments under contract or with an accepted offer.

“We are well positioned to drive superior shareholder value creation through accretive internal and external growth,” Frankel and Schwimmer said in a statement.

The larger of the two most recent acquisitions, the Torrance Technology Campus, is located at 3100-3110 Lomita Blvd. and 3121 Skypark Drive in Torrance. Purchased for $182 million, the five-building property totals 575,976 square feet and sits on 26.6 acres.

The Torrance Technology Campus is leased to three tenants with long-term leases. According to Rexford, it will generate an initial yield of 5.3% for the company and 3% annual rent increases.

Once current leases expire, Rexford plans to renew the leases or build new industrial buildings on the site.

Newmark Group Inc.’s Kevin Shannon, Scott Schumacher and Ken White represented the seller, Torrance FRM, in the sale. Rexford was self-represented.  

“This 27-acre industrial-zoned parcel in Torrance provides inherent long-term value with scale that is nearly impossible to replicate in this mature infill market,” Shannon said in a statement.
 
“The tech campus also produces current long-term returns that are more than double those found in the industrial market today from an investment-grade tenant,” he added.

The property was 91% leased at the time of the sale, according to Rexford. Its largest tenant is L3Harris Technologies Inc., which occupies 80% of the campus, according to Newmark. In 2016, L3 Harris extended its lease and made more than $40 million of infrastructure improvements to the site.  

The South Bay industrial market had a vacancy rate of a mere 1.3% during the second quarter, down from 3% the same period the year before, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.

Asking rents for South Bay industrial assets averaged $1.07 on a triple net basis in the quarter, up 3 cents in a year. This, experts say, make it an incredibly desirable market.

“Given the limited opportunities to acquire industrial land in the South Bay market and the recent massive run-up in land values, industrial investors and developers have increasingly sought covered-land-plays to secure opportunities like this for future redevelopment,” Schumacher said in a statement.
 
The other property Rexford recently acquired is at 8210-8240 Haskell Ave. in Van Nuys. Rexford purchased the 53,248-square-foot property for $12.4 million. It has three vacant industrial buildings on 2.3 acres.