Just over a year after Nissan North America left its South Bay headquarters for the lower costs of Tennessee, the majority of the space on its 42-acre former campus has been sold.

Los Angeles-based Kearny Real Estate Co. recently sold six of the buildings at the site, marking a speedy turnaround for the large property, which has 13 office and light industrial buildings and over 700,000 square feet of space.

Though the departure of Nissan had generated concern over the strength of the local economy, experts say the deal reflects a strong commercial market in the South Bay.

“The commercial space in a lot of jurisdictions throughout the South Bay and in Torrance are in pretty high demand,” said Joseph Magaddino, chairman of the Department of Economics at California State University Long Beach.

The $60 million transaction includes the sale of a nine-story office building to Tireco Inc., a tire and wheel distributor currently based in Compton. Clothing designer Fang Fashion Inc. will move its headquarters from El Monte to a 124,000-square-foot building on the property, and four other companies bought smaller buildings at the site.

In addition to the six buildings, Kearny expects to close deals for two of the other buildings in the beginning of 2008.

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. announced in late 2005 it would move its North American headquarters to Nashville because the cost of doing business in its 40-year-old South Bay campus had grown too steep. The announcement raised anew concerns over California’s competitiveness compared to other states.

But in September of 2006, Kearny beat 30 other bidders for the right to purchase the property for $81 million, indicating Nissan’s move would not have any lasting impact. Kearny said at the time that it planned to divide the property into pieces and market the individual buildings to smaller companies.

Since the purchase, Kearny has made capital improvements to the site, located at the junction of the San Diego (405) and Harbor (110) freeways, and plans to upgrade the remaining five buildings totaling 43,000-square-feet next year.

Tony Nobuyuki, a partner with Kearny, said he expects the number of jobs that will move into the site will more than offset the estimated 2,000 that left along with Nissan. Indeed, Kearny has added some 250 additional parking spaces to the existing buildings to accommodate new employees.

Kearny has benefited from the hot market in the South Bay, though the market has been lagging in some neighboring areas. For example, the vacancy rate of the nearby El Segundo office market is more than 25 percent.