DETROIT — Morning Calm Management has acquired a nine-property industrial portfolio in metro Detroit for $83.7 million. Promanas Group sold the portfolio, which totals approximately 1.5 million square feet. The assets are located within Livonia, Auburn Hills, Redford, Saline, Lake Orion and Macomb Township. Tom Oldham and Dan Labes of Newmark Knight Frank oversaw the transaction.
NEW YORK CITY — Aries Capital LLC, a Chicago-based commercial mortgage and investment banking firm, has closed a $6.5 million CMBS loan for the refinancing of a 16,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Brooklyn. The property is located at 413 20th St. in the borough’s Greenwood Heights neighborhood and was fully leased at the time of sale to Sedona Marble & Granite, which is also a part owner of the building. Neil Freeman and Brandon Perdeck of Aries Capital handled the transaction on behalf of the borrower, New York-based TKS Development Group. The nonrecourse loan carried a 10-year term, 75 percent loan-to-value ratio and 30-year amortization schedule.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — KeyBank has provided a $40 million acquisition loan to Weston Inc. for the purchase of an industrial portfolio in North and South Carolina. Details on the individual facilities were not disclosed, but the portfolio spans five buildings, 1.5 million square feet, and is located in the Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Greenville and Augusta industrial markets. Weston is a privately owned company based in Cleveland that owns more than 13 million square feet of industrial space nationwide.
WARREN, OHIO — Industrial Commercial Properties LLC (ICP) has acquired a 1.4 million-square-foot former Kmart distribution center in Warren in northeastern Ohio. The purchase price was not disclosed. The property is located at 541 Perkins Jones Road. ICP is working with three tenants to take occupancy of a portion of the building, according to Chris Salata, COO. This is ICP’s fifth acquisition of a Sears or Kmart facility. The company most recently acquired a former Sears distribution center in Groveport, Ohio.
BELLEVILLE, MICH. — Beaumont Health has signed a 124,564-square-foot industrial lease in Belleville, about 30 miles west of Detroit. The lease brings the property, located at 41965 Ecorse Road, to full occupancy. Peter Rogers and Randall Allman of CBRE represented the owner, Brookwood Capital Partners, in the lease transaction. Insite Commercial represented Beaumont Health.
MONROE, GA. — Hitachi Automotive Systems Americas Inc., a global supplier of automotive parts, has announced a massive, multi-year expansion of its manufacturing plant in Monroe, approximately 45 miles east of Atlanta. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced on Friday, May 17 that Hitachi will invest anywhere from $100 million to $330 million in expanding its existing facility. The project is expected to bring an additional 100 jobs to Walton County. The parent company of Hitachi Americas, Hitachi Automotive Systems Ltd., is headquartered in Tokyo and manufactures engine powertrain systems, electric powertrain systems and integrated vehicle control systems. The company opened its first facility in Georgia in 1997 and currently employs more than 900 people in the Peach State, making it the largest employer in Walton County. The expansion project will be unveiled in phases over the next five years, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and parts produced at the plant will continue to be sold to major automotive companies like Ford, General Motors, Honda and Nissan. Hitachi cited larger growth in the automotive industry and the strength of the local workforce as the key incentives behind the expansion project. “It’s our goal at the Georgia Department of Economic Development to …
Memphis continued its record-setting ways throughout 2018. Absorption was higher than 2017 by over 735,000 square feet for a total of 6.7 million square feet. Overall vacancy rates fell below 6 percent for the first time in recent history. As of Jan. 1, 2019, vacancy rates were at 5.8 percent. One would think this would come at the expense of rental rates, however, rental rates stayed constant at $2.77 per square foot until year-end. This represents a slight increase of 10 cents per square foot over 2017. With an industrial market exceeding 270 million square feet, it’s no wonder how Memphis got its name as “America’s Distribution Center.” Memphis International Airport is the second largest cargo airport in the world, home to 400 trucking companies, the third busiest trucking corridor (Interstate 40 to Little Rock), one of only four cities to be served by five long-haul Class 1 rail systems, the fourth largest inland port and the second largest stillwater port. Home to the FedEx World Hub, as well as UPS and USPS hubs all operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, Memphis provides the most cost-effective distribution and logistics operations in the country. While Memphis has been …
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — Cronheim Mortgage has arranged a $17.4 million bridge loan for the acquisition of an existing retail and self-storage facility, located on 16.8 acres outside of Sacramento. DealPoint Merrill is the borrower and property owner. At the time of financing, the property was fully operational and stabilized. The financing includes future funding for the renovation and stabilization of the adjoining parcel. The three-year loan features two one-year extensions and an interest rate of 30-day LIBOR plus 375 basis points. When renovated, the asset will provide mixed-use retail and self-storage space with a total of 1,616 self-storage units and 46,904 square feet of retail space. The existing structures were built in 1991; a portion was renovated in 2014, and the remaining portion is being started with the funding of this loan. The existing self-storage facility totals 51,825 square feet and has 685 climate-controlled storage units. The property was built in 1980 as a retail building and converted to self-storage space in 2015. CubeSmart operates the facility.
LAKE CHARLES, LA. — A joint venture between Lotte Chemical USA (KRX: KRW) and Westlake Chemical Corp. (NYSE: WLK) has opened a new chemical plant in Lake Charles, located in the southwest corner of Louisiana near the Texas border. Development costs for the 250-acre campus were estimated at $3.1 billion. The chemical plant produces monoethylene glycol — commonly called MEG — an important ingredient in the making of paper, textile fibers, latex paints, asphalt, resins, antifreeze, coolants and adhesives. With an annual capacity of 700,000 metric tons, the new facility is now the largest MEG plant in the world. South Korea-based Lotte and Houston-Based Westlake expect the plant to generate 250 permanent jobs. According to the Louisiana Economic Development office, approximately 2,000 “indirect jobs” have also been created as a result of this project. “Among Korean petrochemical companies, Lotte Chemical is the first to locate a project in the United States. As such, this project represents a significant investment by Lotte Chemical,” says Jinkoo Hwang, president and CEO of Lotte Chemical USA. “Today also marks the opening of our new corporate headquarters in Lake Charles, and we are very excited to be part of the industrial growth in the region.” …
The U.S. industrial market has now recorded more than 240 million square feet of net absorption for four consecutive years, the strongest run on record, with an all-time high of 284.9 million square feet in 2018, according to Cushman & Wakefield. In New York City, the largest consumer market in the United States, the current industrial supply of approximately 170 million square feet remains heavily constrained, especially around the region’s transportation hubs. Nowhere is the demand for industrial product more apparent than in the area surrounding John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, which handles more than 1.3 million tons of air freight every year, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. JFK is the second busiest air cargo airport on the East Coast behind Miami International Airport and just ahead of Newark International Airport. “There’s really not a lot of land near JFK,” says David Hercman, director of asset management at Long Island-based Milvado Property Group. “So, whatever supply is there is there.” Time-sensitive industrial users like freight forwarders, which organize shipments from manufacturers or producers overseas, need to be close to the airport in order to get products to the end user as quickly as …