A private trust with investors spread throughout various states just exchanged property in Colorado for a major San Marcos retail center. And it could be the tip of the iceberg of money hunting for San Diego retail from that area.

Lee & Associates' Jan Fincham and Pat Dempsey (here, in the Arizona office), along with Randy Dalby in the Carlsbad office, just brokered the sale of Campus Marketplace, a 144k SF Ralph's-anchored shopping center off South Twin Oaks Valley Road for more than $53M. Jan tells us the unidentified 1031 Exchange bought it from Inland American Real Estate Trust, and aside from the fact that it's a grocery-anchored shopping center in San Diego, it's also across the street from San Marcos State College.

“I think that everybody would love to be on the West Coast with a property like this,” Jan says. “San Diego is the Main and Main where they want to be.” The duo tells us they represent other investors seeking properties in SoCal, but finding Class-A retail property is difficult, especially since there is practically no virgin land left to build a new center in San Diego. Then again, that's why investors love the market, he says.