With its $95 million purchase last week of the White Oak Shopping Center inGarner, Inland American Real Estate Trust became the latest institutional investor to make a sizable bet on the Triangle.

Over the past year, as commercial real estate prices in major cities such as Washington, New York, Boston and San Francisco have spiked, institutional investors have increasingly focused their attention on second-tier markets like the Triangle.

"You have a lot of groups fighting over the same assets in the same markets," said Jeff Manno, a vice president of asset management for Oak Brook, Ill.-based Inland American. "We're trying to focus on that next ring of markets." Along with the Triangle, where it also owns six hotels, Inland American, a privately held real estate investment trust with assets of $11 billion, has also been acquiring properties in such places as Dallas, Pittsburgh and Des Moines.

All these markets have characteristics, or are home to certain institutions, that have helped them weather the recent economic storm better than others.

"You're not going to see double-digit, year-over-year gains but at the same time you're not going to see the performance fall off a cliff," Manno said.

As for the Triangle, he pointed to the region's growing population, its educated workforce and its network of well-regarded universities as reasons to be optimistic.

The increased activity of institutional investors in tertiary markets is helping to ramp up investment sales among retail centers in the Triangle.

During the second quarter, $81.2 million in retail properties changed hands, a 186 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to Real Capital Analytics.

Among the recent buyers were Westwood Financial of Los Angeles, Westdale Asset Management of Dallas and the New York private equity firm Blackstone.

Built in 2002 by Collette & Associates of Charlotte, White Oak sits at the intersection of Interstate 40 and U.S. 70. The center's 549,000 square feet of retail space is 97 percent leased to a tenant roster that includes Best Buy, Staples, Kohl's and Dick's Sporting Goods.

Already in a prime location, the center should become more accessible to Garner shoppers when the 1.2-mile extension of Timber Drive is completed this year.

Inland American doesn't plan to make any noticeable changes to the property.

The company paid about $173 per square foot for White Oak. That's comparable to what Kimco Realty paid for the Midtown Commons shopping center in Knightdale in December.

It's slightly below the $180 per square foot that Westwood Financial paid for the McCrimmon Corners Shopping Center in Morrisville.

Although increasing interest from institutional investors could eventually cause valuations to rise in the Triangle, Manno said Inland continues to look for commercial assets in the region that make sense for its portfolio.

"Raleigh is a market that we feel good about," Manno said. "If there are opportunities out there, we're not opposed to making some more investments."