SkyREM Buys Savannah Industrial Asset

July 26, 2024

JLL Capital Markets arranged the sale of the recently built and fully leased distribution center.

TradeportEast-0726 Building D is located within Tradeport East in Midway, Ga., in the Savannah, Ga., industrial market. *Photo courtesy of JLL*

SkyREM has acquired Building D at Tradeport East, a recently built 647,496-square-foot Class A+ distribution facility in the Savannah, Ga., market, from BlueScope Properties Group. JLL Capital Markets represented the seller.

The building is within Tradeport East Business Center, a 235-acre master park owned by Liberty County Development Authority, with sites for sale or lease that can accommodate buildings from 100,000 square feet to 1.3 million square feet. The property is fully leased to Town & Country Living, which produces home textiles for major retailers such as Costco, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart and Wayfair.

The Savannah market had the fourth-largest annual absorption nationally last year, according to a JLL first-quarter industrial outlook. In the second quarter of 2024, the market saw another 3.3 million square feet of net absorption, JLL reported. Combined with first-quarter volumes, year-to-date absorption reached the second largest volume ever at the mid-year mark.

Speculative construction totaled 4.6 million square feet in the second quarter, with more than 45 percent of the new space leased at delivery. A total of 9 million square feet of spec development was underway in the market, including 3.3 million square feet which broke ground in the second quarter. The market’s vacancy rate was 8.8 percent for the second quarter, due to the increased spec activity.

The JLL Capital Markets Investment Sales and Advisory team involved in the deal was led by Senior Managing Directors Britton Burdette, Dennis Mitchell, Sean Devaney and Matt Wirth, along with Director Jim Freeman and Vice President Paige Marlow.

Building D details

Located at 313 Tradeport East Blvd. in Midway, Ga., Building D came online in 2022 as a spec project. It includes 2,822 square feet of office space. Designed to cater to both single and multi-tenant use, the cross-dock building has 190-foot truck courts, 36-foot clear heights, 54- by 50-foot column spacing and multiple entry and exit points. Other features include 60-foot speed bays, ESFR sprinklers, 144 dock-high doors, four drive-in doors and parking for 177 trucks and 327 cars.

Tradeport East is located 1 mile from Interstate 95 and 24 miles from Interstate 16. It is 30 miles from the Port of Savannah, 45 miles from the Port of Brunswick, Ga., and 110 miles from the Port of Jacksonville, Fla. The site is also 30 miles from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. Tradeport East is located within one of Georgia’s designated Opportunity Zones, which provides tax credits for businesses creating new jobs.

SkyREM commercial real estate activity

In Philadelphia, SkyREM is leading the construction of Quartermaster Science + Technology Park, a $250 million venture which involves converting the historic Quartermaster site into a mixed-use property. The project is slated to encompass 1 million square feet of wet and dry lab space for R&D, bio-manufacturing, restaurants, retail spaces and a boutique hotel. SkyREM acquired the 24-acre South Philadelphia site in 2001. The campus includes green space, an ALDI supermarket, headquarters for Indego bicycle transit and several healthcare and security sector tenants.

In November 2022, SkyREM signed Fosdick Fulfillment Corp. to a lease renewal at 550 Research Parkway, a 358,000-square-foot industrial asset in Meriden, Conn., that the firm acquired in 2018.