CenterPoint Buys Second Warehouse in Hunts Point

CenterPoint Properties has snapped up a second warehouse in the South Bronx in three months.

The Oak Brook, Illinois-based company acquired the 81,000-square-foot warehouse at 511 Barry Street in Hunts Point, which is adjacent to its 145,144-square-foot logistics facility at 1080 Leggett Avenue that the firm purchased in May.

CenterPoint declined to disclose the acquisition price, citing a confidentiality agreement. But sources said it was similar to what it paid for the 1080 Leggett property, about $117 million.

The Barry Street warehouse, which is reportedly leased to Amazon on a long-term lease, has been owned by Andrew Chung’s Innovo Property Group since it acquired the site for $54 million in December 2019. Innovo couldn’t be reached for comment.

The building occupies about a third of the 4.6-acre site, leaving ample parking for delivery trucks and trailers. Having a large parking area is crucial to operating an e-commerce warehouse, but open asphalt is particularly hard to come by in an urban environment, said CenterPoint’s Investment Officer Mac Lee in a statement.

“Most industrial buildings in the South Bronx are anywhere from 60 to 100 years old and are functionally challenged with very little parking,” Lee said.

CBRE’s teams led by Brian Fiumara and Doug Middleton, and JLL’s team led by Rob Kossar and Tyler Peck brokered the transaction.

The red-hot industrial real estate sector doesn’t see any signs of cooling down. The Bronx’s industrial vacancy rate was 1.26 percent, according to JLL.