Specht, Pacific Coast Sell Portland Airport Warehouse

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Interstate Crossroads Distribution Center

Specht Development Inc. and its institutional capital partner, Pacific Coast Capital Partners LLC, have sold the Interstate Crossroads Distribution Center— a recently completed warehouse and distribution center in the Airport Way submarket of Portland—for $56 million. JLL Capital Markets represented the sellers.

The buyer was Toronto-based WPT Industrial REIT, which paid $56 million for the 492,554-square-foot building at 16441 NE Cameron Blvd. The property is 100% leased to LKQ and Staples, a JLL spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive. LKQ is a major nationwide wholesaler of used and refurbished auto parts.

The distribution center sits on about 28 acres, which reportedly was one of the last developable sites in that corridor, which provides easy access to the Port of Portland, Portland International Airport and Interstates 84, 205 and 5.

“Its in-fill location in one of Portland’s best submarket, limited office build-out and flexible space make this exactly what every institution wants to own,” said Buzz Ellis, managing director at JLL, in prepared remarks.

The project broke ground in June 2014 and was completed in summer 2015. The construction lender was Wells Fargo, according to Greg Specht, CEO of Specht Development.

The JLL team consisted of Ellis, managing directors Mark Detmer and Bo Mills; Executive VP Paige Morgan; and VP Ryan Sitov.

“Portland has one of the top industrial markets in the country, with a vacancy rate just above 3 percent. Opportunities to own a large distribution center in such a great location are few and far between,” added Morgan.

Additional Endeavours

In its own announcement on the transaction, WPT Industrial REIT also referenced the planned acquisition of an unidentified Class A industrial property in Houston, for about $40.4 million. 

WPT Industrial REIT focuses on warehouse and distribution properties in the United States; its operating subsidiary indirectly owns a portfolio of 47 industrial properties and two office properties in 12 U.S. states and totaling about 15.6 million square feet of gross leasable area.

Since June 2014, Specht and its investment partners have began construction on a total of nearly 1.6 million square feet of speculative industrial developments in metro Portland. These projects include the 732,800-square-foot Vista Logistics Park on 38 acres in Gresham, Ore., reportedly the area’s largest spec industrial project ever launched as a single-phase development.