Alterra Buys 4 Houston-Area IOS Assets

Alterra IOS has acquired four industrial outdoor storage assets totaling 17 acres throughout Greater Houston. Lee & Associates and Partners Real Estate worked on behalf of Alterra in the transaction proceedings.

According to a company statement, Houston will maintain its role as a key component of Alterra IOS Venture III. In May, the investment vehicle closed at $925 million and surpassed its $750 million target.

A glimpse inside the four

Two of the newly purchased properties—which span 7.2 acres and encompass 50,000 square feet of warehouse space—are part of Bay 10 Business Park, a 225-acre industrial campus in Baytown, Texas. Adkisson Group previously owned the assets, according to CommercialEdge data.

Alterra will invest in capital improvements for the two facilities, with upgrades including a new speculative office and a reinforced concrete yard. Located at 8121 and 8223 Parkside Ave. in Baytown, Texas, the industrial properties are less than 3 miles from Interstate 10 and roughly 29 miles east of the Port of Houston.

The next asset on Alterra’s shopping spree was a 5-acre site in Pasadena, Texas, including 57,500 square feet of warehouse space. Following the closure, the buyer struck a 10-year, sale-leaseback deal with the former owner, which CommercialEdge identifies as Quala—an industrial chemical cleaning company.

Carrying the address 5100 Underwood Road, the facility is roughly 9 miles northwest of Pasadena’s Bayport Container Terminal and about 16 miles east of the William P. Hobby Airport. Moreover, the property features a rail spur which provides access to national rail networks.

The fourth acquisition Alterra closed in Houston is a property at 9002 Wayfarer Lane, just 3 miles from the William P. Hobby Airport. Platform Capital previously owned the 4.6-acre asset—CommercialEdge information shows—which also included 40,930 square feet of warehouse space. Furthermore, a trucking company renewed its lease at the facility, with the option for an additional five-year renewal.

Lee & Associates’ Houston brokerage team facilitated the purchase of the two properties at 8121 and 8223 Parkside Ave., while Partners Real Estate Partner Zane Carman worked on the acquisition of 9002 Wayfarer Lane. The sale of the property at 5100 Underwood Road closed in an off-market transaction.

Alterra’s industrial outdoor storage shopping spree

Alterra acquired more than 270 industrial outdoor storage assets throughout the U.S. as of September. The investor serves companies looking to improve their connectivity to store equipment, machinery, vehicle fleets and shipping containers, among others.

Just last month, Alterra closed a 14-acre infill IOS deal in Columbus, Ohio. In July, the company paid $22.4 million for three IOS properties spanning 28 acres in Greater Atlanta. At the start of the year, Alterra bought 17 IOS assets encompassing 44 acres with the seller—TruGreen—committing to a long-term leaseback agreement for all 17 properties.

The advantages of IOS investments

According to GreenPoint Partners CEO Chris Green, investing in industrial outdoor storage has a series of benefits. He posited that the niche is set apart by low ongoing capital expenditure and tripe-net, multi-year leases to single tenants.

Moreover, Green pointed out that the sector’s profitability is expected to increase in the foreseeable future due to low supply—the IOS space is becoming scarce and communities are less likely to zone land for this use—and ballooning demand driven by logistics firms and construction businesses.

Houston’s industrial transactions break the $1 billion mark

Although The Port of Houston’s container traffic increased by 21 percent year-over-year through May, according to a report by Avison Young, The Energy Capital of the World’s industrial price per square foot landed at $107 during the first seven months of the year, below the national average of $135, CommercialEdge’s latest report shows.

Houston’s industrial investment volume clocked in at $1.2 billion year-to-date through July, the same report reveals. The market was among the few whose volumes climbed over the $1 billion mark, with noteworthy mentions including the Bay Area’s $2.5 billion activity, which netted the market its top spot, and Dallas-Fort Worth’s $2.4 billion volume, which took second place.