The industrial market continues to tighten in the San Fernando Valley, and that trend increasingly speaks to the region’s shift to warehouse-based distribution and supply chain-oriented businesses. Primestor Development Inc. in Los Angeles paid $98 million for a three-parcel portfolio of retail properties in Panorama City. The package included the 144,952-square-foot Panorama Mall at 8401 Van Nuys Blvd., a 2,048-square-foot building at 14645 Roscoe Blvd. and vacant land at 14640 Roscoe Blvd. The seller was Macerich Co. of Santa Monica. R.W. Selby & Co. Inc. of Los Angeles bought a 110-unit multifamily portfolio in North Hollywood for $49.5 million, or roughly $417,000 a unit, from Pacific Urban Residential of Palo Alto. The complex, known as Magnolia Park Villas, comprises three buildings on West Magnolia Street between North Clybourn and Biloxi avenues, several blocks east of the NoHo Arts District. Adler Realty Investments Inc. of Woodland Hills purchased a 100,000-square-foot office building in Calabasas for $24 million from Century National Properties Inc. of Santa Monica. The property, in Calabasas Business Park 2 at 23901 Calabasas Road, was 95 percent leased at the time of the sale. Varant and Sevan Markarian of Glendale bought an 18-unit Winnetka apartment property at 7315 Winnetka Ave. for $4.5 million, or nearly $252,000 a unit, from Domino Realty of Beverly Hills. A 50,000-square-foot Sherman Oaks apartment complex with 33 units individually deeded as condominiums sold for $19.5 million, or nearly $600,000 a unit. The sales price translates to roughly $388 a square foot, far above the average sales price of about $210 for similar properties in the neighborhood last year, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group Inc. The El Dorado Villas are at 4510 Murietta Ave. The seller was Van Nuys-based developer Shapiro Ben-Basat and the buyer was an Indonesian investor. Overall, out of 109 million square feet of industrial space in the Valley, 98.2 percent is occupied in the fourth quarter, according to data from Colliers International. That’s compared with 97.6 percent in the same period a year ago. Vacancy rates continued to drop across the area, with the tightest submarket in the Central Valley, where the rate in the fourth quarter stood at just 0.5 percent. But the big story is the significant increases in asking rent compared with the year-ago period. For the broad Valley, rents jumped 18 percent to 73 cents a square foot from 62 cents in the year-ago period. The biggest difference was in the Central Valley, where asking rents hit 89 cents a square foot, a nearly 62 percent jump from 55 cents a year ago. “The market is so tight that landlords with some realism can almost name the rental rate,” said David Young, senior vice president with NAI Capital Inc. in Encino. “Landlord concessions are almost nonexistent and landlords are having their choice of best tenants.” With the rising rental rates, investors are eager to buy or build, but there’s almost no land to build on. As a result, larger investors are turning to old manufacturing plants, Young said, which they are refurbishing into almost-new warehouse and distribution space. In the Valley’s office market, slow and steady defined the march toward recovery from the Great Recession in the fourth quarter. Valleywide, the 14.2 percent vacancy rate was down from 14.5 percent year to year. More companies moved into the market than left and asking rents rose 2.3 percent to $2.22 from $2.17 a year ago. What’s helping aid the office market is the conversion of traditional layouts to creative space, a trend now reaching smaller spaces, brokers said. Martin Agnew, a vice president with Marcus & Millichap in Walnut Creek, said that for the first time he is seeing that trend in the San Fernando Valley. Building owners are motivated to alter configurations because they can’t get the rates they want for their older, traditional buildings. “There’s an increase in rental rates you can capture, plus it opens your leases to a different type of tenant,” Agnew said. That demand helped push up asking rates in the East Valley in the fourth quarter more than any other area submarket. They rose 8.4 percent to $2.46 from $2.27 a year ago, and were up 6.5 percent from the third quarter’s $2.31. – Carol Lawrence