California investor picks up 400,000 square feet of space for $74M

A Southern California real estate investment firm has bought two Tampa business parks for $74.34 million and plans to spend $6.3 million more on improvements.

The buyer is Irvine-based CIP Real Estate and the two properties are the Center Point Business Park and the Hampton Oaks Business Park. They are about 3 miles apart on U.S. 301 on the city’s east side.

Center Point is 146,229 square feet and includes five building. Hampton Oaks, which is north of Center Point, is 259,543 square feet and includes six buildings.

The company did not disclose what it paid for the properties individually.

CIP says Hampton Oaks has access to fiber optic lines “making it an ideal space for telecom and data center operators who require high-speed, low-latency internet connections.”

The company plans to spend $6.3 million over the next three years on improvements.

CIP was founded in 1995. According to its website it’s completed more than $1.5 billion in transactions and owns and manages nearly 8.7 million square feet of property in California, Nevada, Georgia, Texas and the Carolinas.

The two business centers are its first properties into Florida.

“Tampa is a very desirable market, and land parcels for this product type and size of park are becoming increasingly rare, due in part to lack of available land and local industrial zoning restrictions,” CIP CEO Eric Smyth says in a statement announcing the deal.