DHL Buys Suburban Indianapolis Industrial Building

Whiteland Exchange Building 5. Image courtesy of Avison Young

Third-party logistics giant DHL Supply Chain has acquired Building 5, a 979,264-square-foot industrial building in the 2.4 million-square-foot master-planned Whiteland Exchange Business Park at I-65 and Whiteland Road in Whiteland, Ind., from Jones Development.

The sale price was not disclosed. Jones Development was represented by Avison Young Principal Sean McHale and Vice President Peter Seoane, both in the firm’s Indianapolis office. The Indianapolis team is the exclusive leasing agent for Whiteland Exchange.

Jones Development, based in Kansas City, Mo., broke ground on Whiteland Exchange in July 2019. The speculative development was designed to provide Central Indiana with investment-grade industrial space for lease, sale and build-to-suit opportunities.

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The 168-acre development is located along the I-65 distribution corridor in Johnson County, which has experienced strong industrial demand and absorption over the past several years. The county is the fifth fastest-growing county in Indiana and has a strong labor force within a 30-miles radius of the development. Whiteland Exchange is near the convergence of I-65, I-465, I-70 and I-74. More than 50 percent of all U.S businesses and key portions of the U.S. and Canadian populations are within a one-day drive of the site.

McHale said in prepared remarks Jones Development was the first developer to focus on Whiteland, helping make it a major submarket in Johnson County. Seoane stated the total investment in the Whiteland Exchange Business Park is more than $100 million and hundreds of new good-paying jobs have been added to the Whiteland community.

Other major industrial developers in Whiteland include Hines, which formed a partnership with Cresset Real Estate Partners and broke ground on Whiteland 65 Logistics Center, a 1.1 million-square-foot building on 81 acres, in June 2021. In April 2021, Mohr Capital began construction of an 827,000-square-foot speculative industrial building within its Mohr Logistics Park, another master-planned business park also located off I-65 in Whiteland.

Whiteland Exchange deals

Late last year, Lexington Realty Trust, now known as LXP Industrial Trust, acquired three buildings totaling 878,410 square feet within the Whiteland Exchange Business Park from Jones Development for an undisclosed amount. Avison Young also negotiated the sale of the assets.

The largest building in that deal was 530,400 square feet and is fully leased to Amazon since July 2020. It was the first building completed at Whiteland Exchange Business Park. The other assets—a 168,480-square-foot building and a 179,530-square-foot building—are fully leased to a global packing company.

The buyers at the time cited the central location and access to major highways as well as the extensive rail and air systems in the region, including the Indianapolis International Airport, Louisville UPS Hub and the second-largest FedEx hub in the world.

DHL deals

The world’s largest contract logistics provider, DHL Supply Chain announced plans in July 2021 to develop a 1 million-square-foot warehouse facility in Lebanon, Pa. The company planned to invest approximately $88 million to construct two buildings, including the first one encompassing 970,000 square feet, on the 110-acre site. DHL was developing the property for a large-scale customer to enhance its logistics in the Northeast U.S.

In another major deal, DHL Supply Chain sold a newly built, Class A logistics facility in Memphis, Tenn., to a fund sponsored by CBRE Global Investors in a December 2020 sale-leaseback transaction. DHL had acquired the 421,470-square-foot asset in June 2020.