Published by Sacramento Business Journal. 

A Rancho Cordova center with a mix of retail, office and flex space and a need for some tender, loving care has been sold for $3.8 million.

The buyer is a familiar name — Sacramentan Ethan Conrad, who has been picking up good bargains for three years — 34 properties in all.

Plaza de Oro, which consists of four buildings measuring 80,201 square feet at Sunrise Boulevard and Sunrise Gold Circle, is a foreclosed property that Core Commercial has been trying to sell since last October. Originally brokers Jon Gianulias, John DuBois and Mark Denholm, who represented Chase REO in the deal, had the center listed for $5.45 million. With each passing month it was hard to know which tenants would remain, so the asking sales price kept dropping, Gianulias said. The center is 41 percent occupied.

Conrad, of Ethan Conrad Properties Inc., isn’t wasting any time trying to breathe new life into Plaza de Oro.

“We’re getting good activity even though I’ve owned it only two weeks,” he said Friday. He’s renewed one lease, has another lease renewal pending, and expects to sign a new lease in a few days.

Tenants include Togo’s, Aladdin Cafe, M. Shahrzad Restaurant and an Allstate agent office.

Conrad “bought it fairly cheap,” Gianulias said. “He has to work hard to fill up the vacancy.”

What Plaza de Oro has going for it, the broker said, is that a lot of traffic passes by and the center is located at an intersection with a traffic light.

Plaza de Oro needs an owner that will do a fair amount of remodeling and who will be hands-on, Conrad said.

“It’s your typical sort of value-added property I purchase,” he said.

Conrad said he plans to invest more than $100,000 in what he described as a “generic remodel” of paint, landscaping, tree removal, and new fixtures and finishes in the lobby and restrooms of the two-story building. The remodel should be finished by the end of October.