A group of California real estate investors said they are buying the 132,000-square-foot Bend Factory Outlets on south Highway 97 in Bend.

One of the investors, Rick Cordes, marketing director and president of Cordes Commercial of Walnut Creek, Calif., said he expects the deal to close in early April. It is part of an acquisition package that includes the Post Falls Factory Stores in Post Falls, Idaho, he said.

Cordes is buying the outlets with Gary Patterson, managing partner and president of KLP Properties of Walnut Creek.

They had been looking at properties in the Pacific Northwest and found this opportunity in November, Cordes said.

They own and manage more than 30 commercial retail centers in California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington and Idaho.

Cordes said they are looking to lease four vacant stores in the Bend center to women’s and men’s apparel outlets.

Laura Lee Ticehurst, manager of Welcome Home, a home and garden store at the outlet, said she is glad about the pending sale.

”We need to get the mall going,” Ticehurst said. ”We want it to be sold.”

Cordes said he expects the customer base for the center to grow because Bend has had steady growth during the past decade and is quickly becoming a major second-home and vacation market.

”We are truly excited to represent this project in Bend, and we endeavor to win local support and encouragement of our efforts to make Bend Factory Stores a thriving retail outlet center,” Patterson wrote in a release.

According to the Deschutes County Assessor’s Office, the 12-acre property has a real market value of $15 million.