Three-year flip. (Real Estate).

First Industrial Realty Trust is selling off its South Bay portfolio for an estimated $45 million, with four properties totaling more than a 500,000 square feet either sold or in escrow.

South Bay Business Park in Torrance and Carson Industrial Center were sold to pension fund investor RREEF and CIC LLC, respectively, for a combined $26.5 million. Hawthorne's 105 Business Center and Torrance's Normandie Business Center are in escrow for what South Bay sources estimate to be a combined $19 million.

FIRT, a Chicago-based real estate investment trust, bought the properties as part of a joint venture with Carlyle Group about three years ago.

'They're fulfilling their business plan," said Shannon, who couldn't estimate the purchase price of the properties in 1999 because they were part of a larger pool of properties bought by the trust, but added, "they did well."

CIC LLC, which paid $7.1 million for Carson Industrial Center, is comprised of a group of Irvine-based private investors that own a handful of industrial parks in Orange and San Diego counties. RREEF, which bought the 130,000-square-foot Carson Industrial Buildings project last October, paid $19.4 million for South Bay Business Park.

Grubb & Ellis' Shannon, Steve Bohannon and Mike Randall, and Leonard & Ohren's Britt Shuford represented both the buyers and sellers on the four deals.