CB Richard Ellis' vice chairman Jack Fraker, executive vice president Randy Baird, vice president Josh McArtor and associate Conor Feeney began courting investment circles with the listing last Friday. Not only is it institutional-grade space across the board, but the locations are strategic supply-chain pockets in Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, Northern New Jersey, Tampa, Houston, Austin, Reno, NV, Portland, OR and Atlanta--or in CBRE's book, it's been dubbed the "Inland and Coastal Sub-Portfolio."

The deal's dynamics, involving forward-commitments, will drive three closings, with the first tentatively slated for October. The other closings are penciled for first quarter and second quarter 2008.

"The beauty of this is the compilation of brand-new, state-of-the-art, well-located industrial properties," Duffy says. "What stands out for me is the diversification."

Duffy says it's become more commonplace in the past year for portfolios to come to market with a presale component or forward-commitment for future construction. The core locations soften the leasing risk because they're all high-demand industrial markets that made significant contributions to last year's 140 million sf to 160 million sf of net absorption in the US. And with some locations, vacancy can be a sweeter deal than two-year-old leases because rental rates have gone up.

The smallest asset is Sycamore Business Park in Riverside, CA. The park, situated at the corner of East Ridge Avenue and Sycamore Canyon Boulevard, has five buildings ranging from 20,000 sf to 400,000 sf. The largest structure is the 851,349-sf Liberty Distribution Center at 127 Liberty Industrial Boulevard in Atlanta. The portfolio includes the 1.2-million-sf California Palms, a three-building complex at 27040 San Bernadino Ave. in Redlands, CA.

Duffy says TCC and its New York City-based partner aren't taking an early out with the sale. "This is consistent with our business plan to build a portfolio of assets and consistent with an exit strategy that maximizes value as a whole," he explains. "It's not necessarily any earlier than we anticipated, but we have tried to be cognizant of what we have to offer."

As for the recapitalization, Duffy says the plan is to find "a passive partner to contribute up to 70% of the equity in the project." The buy-in is for eight air-cargo buildings at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Calgary International Airport in Canada and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. The development sites all required entitlements from the FAA, Department of Homeland Security, US Army Corps of Engineers and environmental agencies.

And like the 40 for-sale buildings, the air-cargo buy-in isn't carrying a price tag. In Duffy's words, "the market will tell us."

To date this year, the largest industrial sale was in late June when Denver-based ProLogis paid $1.8 billion for 25 million sf to Reno-based Dermody Properties and CalSTRS. It's too early in the game to predict how high bidding will go for the combined TCC-ING offering although it's not expected to eclipse ProLogis' payout because of the size differences alone.