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First Industrial Expanding Its European Presence

The company opened an office in Amsterdam and formed FirstCal Industrial Europe LLC, a JV with the California State Teachers' Retirement System.

By John McCloud | Updated on September 24, 2008

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM-First Industrial Realty Trust Inc. expanded into two new European markets in July, opening offices in Paris and Dusseldorf. The moves follow exactly one year after the Chicago-based REIT entered the continent with the opening of a European headquarters in Brussels.

In January the company opened an office in Amsterdam and formed FirstCal Industrial Europe LLC, a joint venture with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. Initial plans called for investing approximately $475 million in industrial properties in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Belgium’s “Golden Triangle”of Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. But the addition of the two new offices also expands the scope to include markets in France and Germany.

In the former, the joint venture will look to acquire existing properties and development opportunities in Lyon and the Ile-de-France, a 4,600-square-mile area that includes the majority of the Paris metropolitan region and is home to Europe’s largest concentration of commercial properties. In Germany, it will target the Rhine/Ruhr area, as well as Bremen and Hamburg, Europe’s two largest container ports. First Industrial hired Christophe Chauvard to head the Paris office and Oliver Drecker to oversee the office in Dusseldorf.

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