Beverly Hills investor continues pivot to industrial with trio of deals

Dunleer sinks $12M into industrial properties in Santa Ana, Covina and San Bernardino

Dunleer founder BJ Turner with the industrial property at 1165 E. Edna Place in Covina (Google Maps, Dunleer)
Dunleer founder BJ Turner with the industrial property at 1165 E. Edna Place in Covina (Google Maps, Dunleer)

A Beverly Hills real estate investor continues to pivot to industrial properties, sinking $12.4 million into purchases in Santa Ana, Covina and San Bernardino.

Dunleer has ramped up its post-pandemic industrial portfolio with its latest buys across Southern California, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported.

The privately owned firm, which focuses on multifamily and industrial infill properties, now has 75 percent of its portfolio in industrial assets compared with about a third before the coronavirus pandemic.

BJ Turner, founder of Dunleer, attributes the shift to the spike in ecommerce and other factor ranging from companies bringing manufacturing home from overseas to cannabis suppliers and ghost kitchens expanding into industrial properties. .

Other firms, he said, are responding to supply-chain challenges by making sure they have more inventory on hand.

“Each tenant now needs more space to manage their inventory,” Turner told the Business Journal.

Dunleer’s most recent acquisitions in Southern California include the $12.4 million in purchases in Santa Ana, Covina and San Bernardino. Specific terms of each deal were not disclosed.

It bought a 24,400-square-foot building at 2222 to 2308 W. 2nd St. in Santa Ana. The firm plans to make improvements to the building, built in 1965.

It bought a 31,688-square-foot property at 1165 E. Edna Place in Covina. The firm will also fix up the building, built in 1962. Terms of the deal were not released.

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“This was a building that was delivered vacant without a tenant in there,” Turner said, noting the 1 percent industrial vacancy rate in Los Angeles County. “There’s a lot of tenants right now looking…To be able to buy a building that has vacancy…it’s a very, very good thing.”

The San Berardino purchase at the southeast corner of Cajon Boulevard and June Street sits on a 4.6-acre parcel that Dunleer plans to entitle for development.

Dunleer, which has also continued investing in the multifamily sector, mostly out of state, is pursuing other industrial assets as well, Turner said. Beyond growing its industrial portfolio, the company is also doing more with lending and solar energy.

For lending, the company is generally offering quick turnaround bridge loans, but is doing some other loans too. The firm also has a platform with which it buys rooftop solar panels and leases them back to homeowners.

“Those are a couple of business lines that we were able to build on as Covid progressed,” Turner said. “We’ve continued to do both.”

In November, Dunleer paid $10.6 million for a 64,100-square-foot industrial property in Temple City, in the San Gabriel Valley. The following month, it flipped a North Hollywood industrial park for $10.4 million, after just more than a year of ownership.

[Los Angeles Business Journal] – Dana Bartholomew

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