Walton Street Capital Acquires Houston-Area Logistics Property

22525 Clay Road. Image courtesy of JLL

An affiliate of Walton Street Capital has acquired a newly built, 805,601-square-foot sort center in Katy, Texas, a suburban Houston city. JLL Capital Markets represented the seller of the Amazon-leased property and arranged a floating-rate acquisition loan with Wells Fargo Bank for the buyer.

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The price and amount of the loan were not released. The seller was only identified by JLL as a publicly traded REIT but The Houston Chronicle identified the developer and seller as Duke Realty Corp. The newspaper and other local media reports noted the Amazon sort center opened at 22525 Clay Road in Katy, Texas, in October and was for sale at that time. Situated on 54.15 acres, the facility is in the western part of the Houston MSA near the city’s large residential base and major employment centers. It is directly off Highway 99, also known as Grand Parkway, and close to Interstate 10.

The cross-dock building has concrete tilt-wall construction, a 40-foot clear height, 190-foot truck court with substantial vehicle and trailer parking. Other features include 190 dock-high doors, ESFR fire protection and LED lighting. JLL noted the mission-critical facility has a long-term, triple-net lease in place.

Last week, Duke Realty sold another Amazon-leased property in the Houston MSA to Mirabaud Asset Management on behalf of its international clientele for $108 million. That 1 million-square-foot distribution center is located at 31555 US-90 and also has access to I-10.

The JLL Capital Markets Investment Sales Advisory team representing the seller on the Clay Road facility was led by Managing Director Trent Agnew, Senior Managing Director Rusty Tamlyn, Director Charles Strauss and Analysts Tom Weber and Jack Britton. The JLL Capital Markets Debt Placement team representing the new owner was led by Senior Managing Director Colby Mueck, Senior Director Michael Johnson and Analyst Molly Leinsdorf.

The JLL teams noted the strength of the industrial sector, particularly in the I-10 and Grand Parkway corridor, and the continued residential growth in the region. Agnew said in a prepared statement that single-tenant industrial assets with long-term leases to credit tenants continue to attract significant investor interest. Johnson said in prepared remarks that the combination of an excellent credit tenant and a best-in-class buyer for an industrial asset created a great execution with Wells Fargo on the acquisition financing.

Walton industrial deals

Last month, Walton Street Capital provided a $97.5 million acquisition loan to Westcore for the purchase of a 17-property, 4.1 million-square-foot logistics portfolio in nine U.S. markets from USAA Real Estate, according to public records. One of the assets is in Houston and the others are located in Atlanta; Chicago, St. Louis; Salt Lake City; Fairfield, Calif.; Lakeland, Fla.; and San Antonio, Texas.

In November, a joint venture of Walton Street Capital and Wharton Industrial Partners sold SoPhi Logistics Center, a 283,500-square-foot last-mile industrial property in Philadelphia to a private investor. Amazon signed a 10-year lease for the entire facility in June.

Several months earlier in August, the Wharton and Walton partnership were buyers, acquiring a 1.2 million-square-foot logistics portfolio in Pennsauken, N.J., from The Bloom Organization. The portfolio encompassed 32 buildings at two industrial parks in the Philadelphia area.