Major Inland office complex sells

One of the Inland Empire’s more prominent office developments has been sold.

Tri-City Corporate Centre, a 17-building, mixed-use project in San Bernardino, sold for an undisclosed sum, according to CBRE Group Inc.

The transaction, which took five months to complete, was announced Thursday. Based on square footage, it’s believed to be the larger office sale in the history of the Inland Empire, CBRE said in a statement.

The seller, Rancon Realty Fund in Temecula, developed Tri-City between 1986 and 2008, said Mark Longo, an associate with CBRE Ontario.

The buyer is a joint venture between Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management and Hines, a real estate company in Houston.

Tri-City is a mixed-used, master-planned business park near the intersection of Interstates 10 and 215 . Its eight Class A office towers are a mix of mid-rise, low-rise and “flex” buildings, and its tenants include Northrop Grumman, Wells Fargo, Chicago Title, CalPERS, Health Net and the Art Institute of California.

One of the new owner’s first tasks will be attracting more tenants. Despite being one of the more upscale office properties in the Inland region, Tri-City is only 61 percent occupied.

“The new owner has a lot of capital and some fresh ideas about what to do with the property,” said Longo, a member of the brokerage team that negotiated the sale.

Lease rates at Tri-City range from $1.65 to $1.95 a square foot. High-end lease rates at a similar office property in Ontario would be about $2.30 a square foot, Longo said.