For a $94.5 million deal, this one just kind of happened.

Initially, Albertsons wasn't even looking to sell its 63-acre plot off Interstate 880 in San Leandro. But unsolicited offers for the site -- one of the grocery chain's three northern California distribution centers -- kept trickling in, and the company began to listen.

Following a successful sale of a smaller parcel in Novato, in May Albertsons put the property in the hands of Mark Koenig, an NAI BT Commercial partner who had been involved with the property since the late 1990s.

Koenig quickly assembled a six-person team and launched a rapid-fire, three-month sales blitz, contacting more than 300 qualified buyers and showing the property to over 40 interested parties. By September, the team had pulled in 15 formal offers. In early November, Kaiser Permanente closed escrow on the property -- a month ahead of an already tight schedule.

"I always try to be optimistic when we set goals internally, but we exceeded our expectations on all fronts on this deal," said Andrea Nilson, Albertsons real estate manager.

For Kaiser, the timing couldn't have been better. The Oakland-based health-care giant had been looking for a location to build a replacement for its aging Hayward Medical Center, which does not meet state seismic requirements and must be rebuilt or retrofitted by 2013.

The San Leandro site fit all Kaiser's criteria for size, easy freeway access and high community visibility, said Debra Lambert, Kaiser's director of public affairs for the southern Alameda area. That the site provided enough space for the hospital to expand 20 or even 50 years down the road was an added benefit, she said.

"In the Bay Area it is not easy to find such a large parcel that's contiguous," she said. "That was a very attractive feature for us."

By all accounts, the transaction went smoothly, though there was a moment of panic in September when Albertsons announced that it might sell itself, Koenig said. (Early this year, it agreed to a buyout offer from a consortium led by Supervalu, another grocery chain.)

The only other minor hitch was because Albertsons had previously sold a portion of the land to Dean Foods and had to re-obtain the title before the transaction with Kaiser could be completed.

For now, Albertsons is still operating its distribution center while Kaiser works on winning approvals for the property from the city of San Leandro. No start date has been set for the new hospital, but Kaiser's target is to finish construction on the approximately 300-bed facility by 2012.

Though the San Leandro complex will replace Kaiser's Hayward hospital, the health system will continue to provide medical services at the Hayward location even after the new hospital is complete.

Michelle Dammon Loyalka is a reporter for the San Francisco Business Times.

###