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OAK BROOK, IL-CenterPoint Properties, based here, and the Hartford, CT-based US real estate business of UBS Global Asset Management have formed a joint venture focusing on institutional industrial developments in the Chicago metropolitan area. The industrial focus "reflects our continued confidence in the momentum of both the I-94 corridor and the O'Hare submarkets," a CenterPoint spokesman says. The value of the venture could exceed $600 million.

CenterPoint is contributing 2.6 million sf of stabilized buildings, about 600,000 sf of buildings under construction and about 600 acres of developable land to the joint venture. The value of CenterPoint's contribution is more than $250 million, the spokesman says. The venture will focus on the O'Hare and I-94 submarkets. "O'Hare is going through a historic renovation that is changing the landscape of Chicago's most significant industrial real estate sub-market and the I-94 sub-market from Chicago to Milwaukee continues to see robust growth," CenterPoint CEO Michael Mullen said in a released statement.

The joint venture has three speculative buildings planned. A 255,418 sf building is in construction on a 12.9-acre site at 705 Tri-State Pkwy. in Gurnee, IL. The CenterPoint Interstate Center III is expected to be completed in spring 2008. Construction is expected to begin in the spring on speculative buildings near O'Hare and in southeast Wisconsin but it is "too premature to discuss in any depth," the spokesman says.