Industrial property tests market on the auction block

When Prologis decided to put Packer Way Business Center on the market last year and listed it with Alliance Commercial Real Estate Services, Dan Oster, associate, industrial properties, says his advice was: Don't set a price.

Instead, handle the sale as an auction and let the market decide fair price.

Because the local investment market is in a state of flux, first-tier market investors have long perceived little risk in bustling metropoli, says Oster, but recently, "That money sees Reno as a mature marketplace."

RLA Advisors, an investment group out of Southern California, closed on the property in December and paid $7,550,000 for the three industrial buildings at East Glendale and Packer Way totaling nearly 104,000 square feet.

Upon listing, the park was 90 percent leased, says Oster, with nine tenants and two vacant spaces. Investors like that, he says, because a clutch of multiple tenants spreads the vacancy risk.

Renamed Mountain View Business Center, Oster says the complex is now 100 percent leased.