Ivy Realty snagged a Miami-Dade County warehouse with cold storage for $26 million, as it continues to expand its South Florida industrial portfolio, The Real Deal has learned.
The commercial real estate investor bought the property at 6950 Northwest 77th Court from an affiliate of The Apollo Group in a sale-leaseback.
The Apollo Group, a logistics provider to cruise lines, leases the entire property for its headquarters.
JLL said Ivy Realty scored a $17.3 million acquisition loan from a life insurance company to finance the purchase, although the brokerage declined to disclose the lender. JLL’s Melissa Rose secured the seven-year, fixed-rate financing on behalf of Ivy, according to a release.
Records show 6950 Logistics, led by Jose Ramon Barrera Ordonez, paid $15 million for the property in 2015. The Apollo Group assumed ownership in 2018 through a merger with 6950 Logistics.
The building spans 213,131 square feet on nearly 9 acres, which breaks down to 27,000 square feet of offices, 10,000 square feet of showroom space, 136,131 square feet of dry storage space, and 40,000 square feet of cold storage, according to the release.
It was built in 1961, with additions constructed through 2000.
Ivy Realty, founded in 1996, is led by Co-CEOs Russell Warren Jr. and Anthony DiTommaso Jr., as well as Senior Vice President Drew DeWitt, according to its website. It has acquired $1.5 billion in real estate, spanning 11 million square feet, across the Northeast U.S. and Southeast Florida. Ivy Realty has offices in Greenwich, Connecticut; Montvale, New Jersey; and Fort Lauderdale.
Last year, the company bought an 80,000-square-foot industrial freezer facility in north Miami-Dade County for $13.25 million, and a cold storage facility leased to Southeast Frozen Foods and SuperValu for $30.5 million.
Miami-Dade County industrial real estate is the only asset class to thrive during the coronavirus pandemic, bolstered by e-commerce growth. In the first quarter of this year, 1 million square feet was leased to e-commerce tenants, representing half of the e-commerce demand in 2020, according to JLL.
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The pent-up demand has pushed up sale prices of developable land. That prompted Avra Jain and Terra to backtrack on their planned project for 4.7 acres in Miami’s Liberty City and sell the site for $7.5 million in March.