A Bend apartment building sold for $14.25 million last Thursday, apparently setting a new pricing benchmark for large apartment complexes in Central Oregon.

The Meadows is a 168-unit complex on east Bend’s Lotus Drive.

PTLA, a Walnut Creek, Calif., real estate investment firm, paid $9.3 million for the complex in 2002, according to county tax records.

It was the highest total resale price ever paid for a Central Oregon apartment complex at that time, according to Michael Baron, a broker with Sperry Van Ness Commercial Real Estate Advisors. It apparently set the record again Thursday when PTLA sold it to Salzman Properties Limited Partnership, a Portland-based investment company, in a tax-free exchange deal that closed Nov. 15.

“I don’t know of any bigger,” said Baron, an 11-year veteran of Central Oregon commercial real estate who handled the deal both times.

Rents from the complex’s apartments are expected to generate a net annual income equal to around 6 percent of the building’s purchase price, Baron said. The Meadows’ one- to two-bedroom units rent for $600 to $700 per month. The buildings, which sit on about 3.6 acres, are 95 percent occupied, he said.

The complex drew multiple offers from investors across the country, said Baron, who saw the deal as a continued reflection of outside interest in the region’s economic future.

“They’re fairly bullish on future growth,” Baron said. “It’s quality of life. There are 77 million baby boomers looking for a place that’s better than where they are living, and Bend is on their radar screen.”