Hines Buys Logistics Asset in Northern England

Hine’s warehouse within Wakefield 41 Industrial Park in West Yorkshire. Image courtesy of Hines

Hines Global Income Trust Inc. has acquired a logistics asset in the U.K. from AEW UK Investment Management’s AEW UK Core Property Fund for £20.635 million ($25.7 million).

Located within Wakefield 41 Industrial Park in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, the 207,115-square-foot property is fully leased to Integrated Third Party Logistics under a lease with 10 years remaining. The property services Coca-Cola’s largest European manufacturing plant, which is situated next to the warehouse.

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AEW Core acquired the asset in September 2013. Shortly after, the company disposed of an adjoining office building and secured planning permission to double the size of the warehouse unit to about 200,000 square feet.

Hines and Hines Global were advised by Cushman &Wakefield in the transaction, while AEW was advised by Savills.

Steady demand, rents

Recent logistics acquisitions by Hines Global in the U.K. include a 137,000-square-foot asset in Milton Keynes, a 270,000-square-foot distribution facility in Bristol and a 216,000-square-foot warehouse in Edinburgh that serves the Royal Mail.

Mark Wilson, a director in the Savills investment team, said in a prepared statement that the Wakefield transaction indicates the ongoing demand for well-located, high-quality logistics units larger than 100,000 square feet.

A January report from JLL backs Wilson up, noting that such Class A big box space “saw a strong year in 2019,” with absorption at 19.9 million square feet, or about the five-year average. Retailers accounted for 40 percent of the total absorption and 26 percent of that was specifically for e-commerce.

Though the nationwide vacancy of Class A space rose from 8 percent at the end of 2018 to 9 percent at the end of 2019, logistic facility rents are expected to edge up 0.8 percent in 2020, JLL’s report indicates.