Lineage Logistics Acquires Cold Storage Portfolio

1544-46 Hecht Drive in Bartlett, Ill. Image courtesy of JLL

Lineage Logistics has acquired a three-property cold storage portfolio totaling 712,051 square feet in high barrier-to-entry Chicago submarkets from Investcorp. The sale price was not released.

READ ALSO: Crisis Intervention: An Alternative Lender’s View of CRE Finance

Investcorp had been an owner of the properties since April 2017, when the global private equity company’s Real Estate Investment branch announced it had invested in a six-property, 1.8 million-square-foot industrial portfolio in Chicago and Boston for $160 million with Bridge Development Partners LLC. The Chicago properties are located at 2635 S. Western Ave. and 2658 S. Leavitt St. in Chicago; 8424 W. 47^th St. in Lyons, Ill., and 1544-46 Hecht Drive in Bartlett, Ill.

JLL Capital Markets marketed the portfolio on behalf of Investcorp. The JLL Industrial Capital Markets team representing the seller was led by Senior Managing Director John Huguenard and Senior Director Ed Halaburt along with Managing Director Sean Devaney and Senior Directors Kurt Sarbaugh and Robin Stolberg.

Chicago details

Halaburt described the cold storage assets as a multi-tenant portfolio with fewer than four years of average remaining lease term. The firm noted the sale represents one of the few multi-property, multi-tenant cold storage transactions nationally.

The portfolio is 100 percent leased to 11 tenants and features clear heights ranging from 24 to 48 feet and ambient temperatures ranging from down to -10. Each location is known for its food-oriented user base and benefits from being in one of the leading food production centers in the world. The properties provide tenants with easy access to Chicago’s urban core population and a regional population of about 9.5 million people.

Growing sector

Lineage Logistics is the world’s largest refrigerated warehousing company with about 200 facilities in North America, Europe and Asia. Among its properties is Lineage Cool RPort Oakland, a 280,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art cold storage facility built and operated by Lineage and Dreisbach Enterprises at the Port of Oakland in Oakland, Calif. Lineage is controlled and operated by Bay Grove LLC, one of the main investors in the cold storage sector. CBRE Research notes there is a small buyer pool—less than 10 percent of the overall industrial and logistics sector buying pool. Bay Grove is among the newer entrants into the market along with other institutional investors like Blackstone and New Market Capital. Spurred by growing online food sales, especially direct-to-consumer food delivery services, there is a strong demand for more refrigerated warehouses in the U.S., according to CBRE Research, which produced a three-part series last year exploring the growth of the cold storage industry’s impact on industrial and logistics real estate.