Jacksonville Industrial Property Sells for $30M

600 Whittaker Road. Image courtesy of LRC Properties and Machine Investment Group

LRC Properties and Machine Investment Group have teamed up to buy industrial properties in the Southeast, including the $29.6 million acquisition of 600 Whittaker Road, a 469,830-square-foot distribution center in Jacksonville, Fla.

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The debt on the purchase was funded by Rialto Capital. Further details on that part of the transaction were not available.

The warehouse property is situated in the Imeson International Industrial Park, a 1,500-acre master-planned development in the Northside submarket of Jacksonville, which is one of the key submarkets in the region.

Built in 1995, 600 Whittaker Road was most recently owned by Invesco Real Estate, which paid $32 million for the asset in March 2019, according to CommercialEdge data. The Invesco purchase was part of a $129.3 million, three-building, nearly 1.9 million-square-foot industrial portfolio acquisition from Gramercy Property Trust.

The property is the only rail-served vacancy in the tight Jacksonville industrial market, according to Machine Investment Group. It has significant trailer parking, 32-foot clear heights, 54 loading docks and 14 rail-served loading docks. The 24.46-acre property is located near I-95, I-295, I-10 and two ports. LRC and Machine Investment Group plan to make cosmetic upgrades and improve the signage. The property last had a cosmetic renovation in 2007.

Karie Nero, principal & CFO of LRC Properties, said in a prepared statement the location near major interstates, the ports and rail access made the property an ideal distribution hub for many companies. Nero said they are seeing great interest from potential users.

Nashville deal

With the purchase of the Jacksonville property and a recent acquisition of 2 Dell Parkway, a 288,860-square-foot industrial property in Nashville, Tenn., LRC Properties owns approximately 6 million square feet of commercial properties in the Southeast, with assets under management worth more than $500 million.

LRC Properties and Machine Investment Group have also partnered to purchase the Nashville industrial property, with significant development rights, for $36.23 million. Located in Nashville’s Airport submarket, 2 Dell Parkway is a warehouse and office property. As part of their value-add business plan, Machine and LRC will renovate the asset to expand its total rentable square footage to approximately 368,000 square feet. They will convert office space to additional industrial space and create new Class A shallow bay warehouse space. The existing mini-bulk distribution center is currently fully leased by Amazon as the anchor tenant.

The Nashville industrial market, particularly the Airport submarket, is one of the tightest industrial markets in the Southeast, with robust tenant demand, extremely low vacancy and lack of available land for new development. The Nashville market is also experiencing strong tailwinds due to migration to the Southeast and significant corporate relocations. A gateway to the rest of the Southeast, 72 percent of the U.S. population is within a two-day drive of Nashville.

Opportunistic buys

Noting both the Jacksonville and Nashville properties are located in leading national distribution hub markets, Eric Rosenthal, managing partner of Machine, said in a prepared statement both deals represented a unique opportunity to add opportunistic industrial assets to its growing portfolio. Launched in August, Machine is a New York City-based real estate investment platform that focuses on opportunistic, distressed and special situations investments. The firm’s first transaction was the $54.5 million acquisition of Stevens Creek Executive Park in San Jose, Calif., in a Silicon Valley redevelopment play.