SEWICKLEY, PA. — A joint venture between Washington, D.C.-based ASB Real Estate Investments and an affiliate of Endurance Real Estate Group LLC has acquired a 408,000-square-foot industrial complex in Sewickley, roughly 10 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, for $38 million. The seven-building complex was 99 percent leased at the time of sale to companies such as Amazon, Verizon and Chrysler. CBRE represented the seller, Bentall Kennedy, a subsidiary of Sun Life Investment Management, in the transaction. The sale included three undeveloped parcels for future expansion.
FAIRFIELD, CONN. — West Orange, New Jersey-based brokerage firm Sheldon Gross Realty has closed the $30 million-plus sale of seven office and industrial buildings totaling 315,800 square feet in the coastal Connecticut city of Fairfield. The buyer was an institutional investment firm and the seller was undisclosed. Robert Nathin of Sheldon Gross Realty, which has also managed the properties for the past two decades, brokered the deal.
DUNCAN, S.C. — Liberty Property Trust (LPT) has signed Rochling Automotive USA and XPO Logistics to industrial leases at Hillside Industrial Park in Duncan. Hillside Industrial Park is situated near U.S. Highway 290, less than a mile from the Interstate 85 interchange. Rochling Automotive has renewed its 124,800-square-foot, full-building lease at 265 East Parkway. The German-based automotive company designs and engineers components and system solutions in the fields of aerodynamics, propulsion and new mobility for automotive manufacturers globally. Bobby Lyons of Lyons Industrial represented the tenant in the lease transaction. Bryan Blythe represented LPT internally. The industrial REIT also signed XPO Logistics to a 32,000-square-foot lease at 170 Parkway West. Russell Perry and Russell Perry Jr. of R.E. Perry Co. represented XPO Logistics in the lease transaction. Brian Young, Elliott Fayssoux and Kacie Jackson of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer represented LPT.
SAN FERNANDO AND SAN DIEGO, CALIF. — Rexford Industrial Realty has acquired two industrial properties, comprising six buildings, for a total of $139 million. The acquisitions were funded using cash on hand and draws on the company’s line of credit. The company purchased San Fernando Business Center within the LA-San Fernando Valley submarket for $118.1 million, or $200 per square foot. At the time of acquisition, the industrial business park was 88 percent occupied. The park consists of three single-tenant industrial buildings and two three-tenant industrial buildings, totaling 591,660 square feet on 28.6 acres of land. The property features 24-foot minimum clear heights, extensive dock-high loading and proximity to four freeways. Additionally, Rexford acquired 10015 Waples Court within the Central San Diego submarket for $21.3 million, or $200 per square foot. Situated on 5.4 acres, the vacant industrial building features 106,412 square feet with 31-foot clear heights and is divisible for two tenants.
PHOENIX — PCCP has formed a joint venture with Hopewell Development to develop a three-building speculative industrial project in Phoenix’s Southwest Valley submarket. The buildings will be located on two fully entitled sites and completion is slated for late 2019. Two buildings — offering 78,150 square feet and 84,708 square feet — will be situated on a 10.6-acre parcel along 67th Avenue. The third building will be located on a 4.8-acre site along 43rd Avenue. Each building will feature 28-foot to 32-foot clear heights, between 17 and 25 dock-high doors in addition to grade-level doors, and one speculative office build-out space. Additionally, both sites will feature direct frontage to an intersection, multiple access points and easy freeway access to both the Interstate 10 and the future Loop 202 extension, which is scheduled for completion in late 2019. Bo Mills and Mark Detmer of JLL sourced the joint venture equity for the partnership.
The current pace of development and absorption of manufacturing and warehousing space in El Paso reveals just how closely the local economy is linked to that of its sister city across the border, Ciudad Juárez. Mexico’s maquiladora system allows foreign companies to produce and export materials to that company’s home country, largely on a duty- and tariff-free basis. When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed in the mid-1990s, maquiladora activity saw its largest historical increase while still facing considerable competition from China for foreign investment. But when American manufacturers realized that outsourcing production to China didn’t translate to more efficient supply chains, they once again looked toward Mexico, which also boasted strong supplies of affordable labor. With the United States now locked in a trade dispute with China, the economic development initiatives offered by the current Mexican Presidential Administration and the threat of a drastically renegotiated NAFTA agreement having passed, American companies are beginning to return to Mexico. Ciudad Juárez is among the Mexican cities benefitting most from this activity, and it is translating to greater demand for storage and distribution space in El Paso. Many maquiladora companies count end users in southwestern U.S. markets as significant …
FARMERS BRANCH, TEXAS — Holt Lunsford Commercial has secured a 40,450-square-foot industrial lease renewal at 4443 Simonton Road in Farmers Branch, a northern suburb of Dallas. Andrew Gilbert of Holt Lunsford represented the landlord, Boston-based TA Realty, in the lease negotiations. Adam Curran of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant, Inkjet Printing International LLC.
COPPELL, TEXAS — CBRE has negotiated a 20,000-square-foot industrial lease renewal in Coppell, located just north of Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport. Brian Gilchrist and Steve Koldyke of CBRE represented the tenant, telecommunications firm GW Communications, in the lease negotiations.
CHICAGO — Podolsky Circle CORFAC International has brokered the sale of an 8,258-square-foot industrial building in Chicago for $1.4 million. Located at 215 N. Laflin St., the vacant, single-story property is situated in the West Loop. Adam Tarantur and Austin Vanderstappen of Podolsky Circle represented the seller, a family trust. An undisclosed buyer plans to use the property for an adaptive reuse project that is in line with other Fulton Market projects.
GILBERT, ARIZ. — Graycor Construction Co., on behalf of SunCap Property Group, has started construction of a flex industrial building at the Gilbert Spectrum industrial project in Gilbert. The building is the is the first development in the southern portion of the 63-acre project, which is situated at the southwest corner of Elliot and McQueen roads. Known as Building One, the 135,745-square-foot facility will feature 32-foot clear heights, 40 dock-high and four grade-level loading doors, and ESFR sprinklers. Completion is slated for late July. SDHQ Off Road, an off-road vehicle supplier, will occupy 28,000 square feet in the building, with the additional space being developed on a speculative basis and divisible down to 15,000 square feet. Gilbert Spectrum is already home to a 58,289-square-foot, built-to-suit “Satellite Engineering Building” for Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (formerly Orbital/ATK). Built by Graycor in 2017, the one-story, Class A office building mixes open collaborative areas and task-specific work zones. Building One is one of five new buildings — totaling more than 435,000 square feet — that SunCorp will develop at Gilbert Spectrum as the market demands. At build-out, Gilbert Spectrum will include more than 800,000 square feet in eight to 10 buildings that range in …