Remember when industrial real estate was a steady but boring sector, about as eye-catching as its architecture is interesting? Wasn’t so long ago.
But Amazon, e-commerce and the pandemic have combined to make that description an anachronism.
In the largest commercial investment sale in Chicago this year, Prologis paid nearly $100 million for a Goose Island warehouse and office building, Crain’s reported. The deal for the 339,000-square-foot building at 930 West Evergreen Avenue continues Prologis’ aggressive pace of acquisitions over the last year.
It was also a profitable deal for the sellers, Related Fund Management — an investment arm of Related Companies — and Connecticut-based Greenfield Partners. The duo acquired the property less than two years ago from Mars Food for $73 million, according to the report. The two companies are long-term tenants in the property through their joint venture, Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment firm created in 2019, Crain’s noted.
The rest of the building is fully leased to a pair of companies.
Chicago’s industrial market has always been a strong performer, but Amazon has helped thrust it into the spotlight. From March through July of last year, the e-commerce giant leased 11 million square feet of distribution centers and warehouses in the Chicago area, helping drive up prices across the sector.
[Crain’s] — Alexi Friedman