RICHLAND, WASH. — HFF has arranged a $110 million acquisition loan for the largest refrigerated warehouse in North America. Completed in 2015, the Class A, 456,412-square-foot cold storage warehouse and distribution facility is located at 2800 Polar Way in Richland.
Mark West, Brandon Chavoya and Coler Yoakam led HFF’s team in arranging the loan. The team worked on behalf of the borrower, an affiliate of Lexington Realty Trust (NYSE: LXP), to place the 10-year, fixed-rate loan with MetLife Agricultural Investments. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed, but Lexington Realty Trust’s SEC filings show the price as $155 million.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Preferred Freezer Services, a cold storage provider, leases the facility on a long-term, triple net basis. The property consists of 312,755 square feet of freezer capacity that stores product at -10° F and 94,930 square feet of medium temperature mezzanine dock space. Additional building features include an 11,900-square-foot, two-story office; 6,492-square-foot, two-story equipment/utility room; and 30,335 square feet of mezzanine dock space.
At the peak, the freezer has a wall height of 115 feet with an interior clear height of 108 feet, which allows for approximately 11 stories of vertical product storage. Additionally, there are 31 manually operated dock high doors, four automated truck loading dock high doors and one grade-level door.
The property stores and distributes potatoes processed at ConAgra’s nearby Lamb Weston processing plant and is expected to move approximately 2 billion pounds of frozen products through the facility annually.
MetLife’s Agricultural Investments Department oversees an agricultural portfolio consisting primarily of mortgages for farms, ranches, food production, agribusiness and timberland. MetLife has provided agricultural financing solutions since 1917 and is one of the largest agricultural mortgage lenders in North America.
Lexington Realty Trust is a New York-based REIT that seeks to expand its portfolio through acquisitions, sale-leaseback transactions and build-to-suit arrangements for industrial facilities throughout the country. The REIT’s stock price closed on Wednesday, Jan. 20 at $6.93 per share, down from $11.26 per share at this time last year.
— John Nelson