Vacant Industrials Attracting Investors

CHICAGO—The demand for the Chicago area’s newer industrial properties has increased so much that investors have begun assuming more risk by snapping up vacant buildings. EnTrust Realty Advisors, LLC, an affiliate of The Alter Group, for example, just sold 1660 Wall Street, a recently built 108,732-square-foot warehouse and distribution building in suburban Mt. Prospect, to KTR Capital Partners, a New York-based real estate private equity fund manager that specializes in industrial property. The warehouse was finished in 2009 but remained vacant.

“The property was developed at the bottom of the recession,” says James I. Clark III, the managing principal of EnTrust. But the demand for core industrial properties began to pick up as the area’s economy started to revive. “It now makes sense for investors to buy even if they have to assume a leasing risk. We’ve seen that demand picking up in the last six months.”