By Ben van der Meer  –  Senior Reporter, Sacramento Business Journal

Jun 27, 2023

An office/industrial property with 60% leasing was good enough for real estate investor Ethan Conrad to make a sale.

Conrad announced last week the sale of 3127 Fite Circle, a 24,133-square-foot building in Rancho Cordova.

“If Ethan can sell a property that is 40% or more vacant at stabilized pricing, especially one that has been hard to lease up, he has no problems doing that and it makes complete sense,” said Connor Finch, a vice president with Sacramento-based Ethan Conrad Properties, in an email.

Built in 1981, the property has a 9,577-square-foot office/warehouse suite Finch described as having a funky layout. Sunrise Shoes and Pedorthic Service, electronics manufacturer i5LED and wheelchair van dealer MobilityWorks appear to be current property tenants.

Finch said Koreana Management LLC was the buyer, for $3.65 million, or about $152 a square foot. The buyer has an address in Oakland but appears to be connected to KP International Market in Rancho Cordova.

Representatives of Koreana Management couldn’t be reached by the Business Journal for comment, and Race Merritt, a senior vice president at Ethan Conrad Properties who worked on the buyer’s behalf in the deal, said they preferred to not be contacted.

Finch said the buyer plans to use the available space at 3127 Fite Circle for storage.

“Selling to an owner user is almost always a great exit strategy especially when you plan to exchange into a better opportunity, which Ethan plans to do,” Finch said.

In an email, Conrad said proceeds from the sale will probably be used in an exchange deal to acquire a big-box retail property in Merced. That purchase would be at about half the per-square-footage dollar amount of the Rancho Cordova sale, he said.

According to real estate information website Reonomy, 3127 Fite Circle was one of the longer-held properties in Conrad’s portfolio. The site shows he acquired it in 1999 for $803,500.

The majority of Conrad’s purchases in the region came during and after the Great Recession, as he scooped up dozens of commercial properties at depleted values.