Progressive Real Estate Partners Closes $2.95 Million Sale of Former Rite-Aid Building in Barstow to Barstow Community College
BARSTOW, Calif. — Progressive Real Estate Partners has completed the $2.95 million sale of a 17,272-square-foot freestanding retail building at 1380 Barstow Road in Barstow, California, to Barstow Community College. The transaction, announced Sept. 24, 2026, represents an institutional conversion of a former Rite-Aid pharmacy location along one of Southern California's busiest freeway corridors.
Deal Details and Brokerage
Paul Galmarini, senior vice president at Progressive Real Estate Partners, represented the seller, a Southern California real estate developer. George Okita and Sophia Heimall of California Commercial Real Estate Services represented the buyer. The sale price of $2.95 million equates to approximately $171 per square foot.
"Our comprehensive, out-of-the-box marketing program along with the college's vision was instrumental in securing this deal," Galmarini said. "The college was attracted to the property's proximity to its main campus, boosting organic facilities' growth for the college."
Property and Location
The building sits at the intersection of Interstate 15 and Interstate 40, two major freeways that together carry approximately 19 million vehicles annually. Barstow draws more than 60 million visitors who stop, shop, or dine in the city each year, according to the brokerage. The property's freeway-adjacent position along the I-15 corridor between Los Angeles and Las Vegas gives it prominent access and visibility within the city's principal transportation hub.
Barstow functions as a regional junction connecting I-15, I-40, and Highway 58, and serves as a retail and service center for surrounding rural communities including Yermo, Lenwood, and Newberry Springs. Major employers in the area include the Marine Corps Logistics Base, BNSF Railway, Barstow Unified School District, and the City of Barstow.
Institutional Conversion of Vacant Retail
The acquisition illustrates a broader trend in which public agencies and educational institutions absorb large-format retail vacancies left by contracting pharmacy chains. The Barstow Community College purchase appears to be an owner-user acquisition driven by the building's proximity to the college's main campus and its potential to support facility expansion without the cost and timeline of ground-up construction. A freestanding former drugstore typically offers a single-story floor plan, on-site parking, and high-visibility access — characteristics that translate well to institutional use.
The transaction follows a pattern seen elsewhere in the Inland Empire, where vacated Rite-Aid locations have attracted both new retail tenants and non-retail owner-occupiers. The two outcomes — retail re-tenanting and institutional conversion — reflect the flexibility that large-format pharmacy buildings can offer when pharmacy operators consolidate their store networks.
Market Context
The Barstow property's sale price of approximately $171 per square foot is below the broader Inland Empire retail average. In the second quarter of 2026, the average retail sale price across the Inland Empire stood at $249 per square foot, down 25.24% from $333 per square foot a year earlier. Regional retail vacancy was 6.2% in the second quarter, while average asking rents were $1.72 per square foot per month. The average cap rate in the region rose to 6.7% in the second quarter from 5.6% in the first quarter and 5.8% a year earlier, reflecting increased buyer yield requirements amid higher financing costs.
The discount relative to the regional average is consistent with the Barstow property's location in the High Desert portion of the Inland Empire, where rents and land values are generally lower than in the region's western and central submarkets. Because the transaction appears to be an owner-user purchase rather than a conventional leased investment, a capitalization rate comparison is not directly applicable.
About the Firms
Progressive Real Estate Partners is a boutique commercial brokerage firm headquartered in Rancho Cucamonga, California, founded in 2008. The firm focuses on the leasing and sale of retail properties across Southern California's Inland Empire, San Gabriel Valley, and Coachella Valley, and serves as the exclusive Inland Empire representative of the Retail Brokers Network. The firm reports completing more than 2,000 lease and sale transactions valued at more than $2 billion across more than 50 cities since its founding.
California Commercial Real Estate Services represented the buyer in the transaction.