EQT Exeter Pays $120M for Savannah Industrial Park

August 24, 2023

This 1.2 million-square-foot property was fully leased at the time of sale.

Southeast Gateway totals 1.2 million square feet of distribution space. Image courtesy of Conor Commercial Real Estate

EQT Exeter has expanded its portfolio of industrial assets with the acquisition of Southeast Gateway, a two-building, 1.2 million-square-foot business park in Savannah, Ga. Conor Commercial Real Estate, the development-focused arm of The McShane Cos., sold the property for $120.4 million, public records show.

A JLL Capital Markets team led by Director Jim Freeman, Senior Managing Directors Britton Burdette and John Huguenar and Analyst Max Coffin brokered the sale on behalf of both parties.

The purchase of Southeast Gateway follows EQT Exeter’s July closing of Industrial Value Fund VI, a $4.9 billion investment vehicle pursuing the development, acquisition, management, leasing and sale of single-tenant, logistics-focused industrial assets. Exceeding its target pool by $900 million and attracting capital from a global set of clients, the fund is one of the largest of its kind in history.

Next to Savannah’s shipping gateway

The 137-acre, distribution-focused Southeast Gateway was developed by Conor in a joint venture with WHI Real Estate Partners. McShane Construction Co., the developers’ sister company, provided design-build services for the project.

The campus came online in 2022 at 400 and 450 Fort Argyle Road. The 184,080-square-foot Building 1 has 32-foot clear heights, 38 dock doors, two drive-in doors and 50 trailer parking stalls, according to CommercialEdge information. The 1,004,400-square-foot Building 2 exceeds the first in all size metrics, having 40-foot clear heights, 177 dock doors, four drive-in doors and 318 trailer parking stalls.

Both warehouses landed full-building tenants prior to their completion. Bathroom appliance maker Swiss Madison occupies Building 1, while Maersk Warehousing and Distribution Services leased the entire Building 2. Presently, Colliers manages leasing at the campus.

Directly facing Georgia State Route 204, Southeast Gateway is roughly 1 mile from a highway interchange with access to Interstate 95, placing it within a two-day drive of all the East Coast’s largest population centers. The campus is also 17 miles from the Port of Savannah, which provides shipping to 44 percent of the country’s population.

With its access to the nation’s fastest-growing and third-busiest seaport, the Savannah industrial market had a vacancy rate of 3.6 percent as of June, according to a second quarter 2023 report from Cushman & Wakefield, while experiencing 6.6 million square feet of positive net absorption since the beginning of the year.

On the manufacturing front, the metro is the site of a $4.3 billion Hyundai electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant. The project is adjacent to Hyundai Metaplant America.