PHOENIX — Aquafil USA has leased a 116,890-square-foot industrial building in Phoenix. The facility is located at 3555 W. Washington St. It was built in 1991. The company is expanding into the market to increase its nylon fiber operations. Keith Clark and Dave Dixon of Commercial Properties Inc./CORFAC International represented the tenant, while JLL represented the landlord, Colony Northstar, in this transaction.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A joint venture between North Signal Capital LLC and a fund managed by Westport Capital Partners LLC has purchased two industrial sites in Charleston with plans to develop a speculative building and a build-to-suit property. The sites, collectively referred to as North Pointe Commerce Park, will add approximately 400,000 square feet of Class A industrial space to the market. The partnership will break ground on the 250,000-square-foot speculative building this month, with delivery slated for September 2018. The build-to-suit project could deliver as early as September 2018. North Pointe Commerce Park is situated within 10 miles of the Charleston International Airport, North Charleston Terminal, Boeing and SPAWAR, the U.S. naval installation. Colliers International represented the seller, WestRock, in the transaction. Peter Fennelly, Hagood Morrison and Simons Johnson of Colliers will handle the industrial park’s leasing assignment.
TUCKER, GA. — Atlanta-based Ackerman & Co. has acquired Lavista Business Park, a four-building industrial portfolio located at 2000-2062 Weems Road in Tucker, roughly 20 miles northeast of Atlanta. Tom Shafer and John Hinson of CBRE represented the seller, Onward Investors affiliate CRE Lavista LLC, in the $12.7 million transaction. At the time of sale, the property was 87 percent leased to tenants including sonnen, which established its 26,000-square-foot U.S. headquarters and innovation center in the park in August; the Veterans Administration; Pure Red Marketing and WaveGuide Solutions. Frank Farrell of Ackerman will handle the property’s leasing assignment.
CHICAGO AND GREENWICH, CONN. — A joint venture (JV) between Chicago-based Brennan Investment Group and Greenwich-based Arch Street Capital Advisors LLC has acquired a portfolio of 11 industrial properties totaling roughly 2.5 million square feet. The portfolio is valued at approximately $100 million. The properties are located in various markets throughout the Midwest and Southeast, including Chicago, Minneapolis and Grand Rapids, Mich., as well as Jacksonville, Fla., and Birmingham, Ala. The transaction marks the JV’s sixth acquisition since its formation in 2011. Since that time, it has acquired more than $1 billion in single-tenant, net-leased industrial properties. “This acquisition represents the breadth and depth of our net-lease platform,” says Michael Brennan, chairman and managing principal of Brennan. “We have the ability to both acquire large portfolios and to aggregate individual long-term, net-lease assets and can invest across the U.S. in both long- and short-duration net-leased properties with an emphasis on mission-critical assets.” The JV will continue to target investment opportunities involving all types of industrial properties, including assembly plants, research and development facilities and distribution centers. Specifically, it will pursue properties that are located in a top 100 market, have a remaining lease term of at least 10 years and …
OPELIKA, ALA. — HDA Architects has announced that the construction of a 72,000-square-distribution center for Adams Beverages Inc. in Opelika is now complete. The building design utilizes brick, cast stone, tilt-up concrete and reclaimed wood. Adams Beverages is a full-service beer and non-alcoholic beverage distributor and a family-owned Anheuser-Busch wholesaler. HDA has designed over 150 beverage distribution centers nationwide with a team of six St. Louis-based companies: Gabriel Project Management, Murphy Co., Kasier Electric, Grimes Consulting, Color-Art and Alper Audi. McShane Construction Co. provided construction services for the project, which features a cold storage component.
MONROE TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Sheldon Gross Realty has arranged the sale of a warehouse and office facility located at 10 Abeel Road in Monroe Township. NBR Equipment acquired the 45,000-square-foot property from Abeel Associates for an undisclosed price. The property, which features 24-foot ceiling heights, was 50 percent office space at the time of sale. The buyer plans to convert the building into a warehouse distribution facility. Jonathan Glick, Glenn Jaffe and Matthew Leonelli of Sheldon Gross Realty, along with Simone Realty, represented the buyer in the deal.
HOUSTON — The J. Beard Real Estate Co. has brokered the sale of two office/warehouse properties totaling 119,675 square feet in Houston. The flex properties are situated on 16.7 acres at 12450 and 12452 Cutten Road. Jeff Beard of The J. Beard Co. represented the buyer, Downhole Technology, a provider of hydraulic fracturing plugs. Cape Bell and Allison Hall of Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller, Northwest Real Estate Holdings LLC.
DOWNERS GROVE, ILL. — Rexnord Corp. will build a new manufacturing facility and aerospace headquarters in Downers Grove, about 20 miles west of Chicago. Rexnord will replace its existing 200,000-square-foot facility, built in 1956 and located at 2400 Curtiss St. within the Ellsworth Business Park. The 248,000-square-foot facility is slated for completion by 2019. The Downers Grove Economic Development Corp. worked closely with the project’s consulting firm, Cushman & Wakefield. Milwaukee-based Rexnord manufactures motion control, aerospace and water management products.
As the flooding in Houston from Hurricane Harvey begins to recede and more properties become accessible, commercial real estate firms are beginning the long, tedious process of figuring out the full magnitude of the destruction. It will likely be months before the full extent of the property damage throughout Houston is known. But the fortunes of certain classes of commercial real estate are already coming into focus. Metro Houston’s industrial market, which according to CoStar Group has experienced positive net absorption for 10 consecutive quarters, appears to be an immediate beneficiary of the storm. With recovery and restoration projects now fully underway across the metro area, demand for construction materials — wood, sheet rock, concrete — is set to rise. These products will need to be stored in warehouses and distributed throughout the metro area. This influx will likely put a dent in industrial vacancy, which rose from 5.3 percent to 5.6 percent between the first and second quarters. Rents for warehouse assets, which declined by 1 percent during the second quarter, should also rebound from the recovery effort. “On the industrial side, our people have seen a spiked level of demand that will result in more absorption,” says Tim …
Speaking to a panel of real estate professionals in the 1980s on the dangers of overbuilding during a period of economic expansion, Dallas real estate magnate Trammell Crow offered lenders in the crowd a simple proposition: “If you stop lending, I’ll stop developing.” Thirty-one years later, the nature of that relationship has manifested in the Texas self-storage market. After minimal delivery of self-storage properties in 2012 and 2013, development began to surge in 2014. The Texas Self Storage Association (TSSA) estimates that there are now roughly 6,500 facilities statewide, and local sources concur that unit growth from 2014 to the present has been somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 new facilities per year. This development boom has occurred in the face of rising land prices, high property taxes and a constricting pool of skilled labor that has driven up construction costs. Overall economic growth is contributing to the concern as well. Lenders are still lending, thus developers are still developing, betting that the pent-up demand for self-storage properties in Texas still has some gas left in the tank. The bullish perspective on self-storage appears to go beyond the Lone Star State. Tennessee-based hotel data and research firm STR, which has …
