In the meantime, the Canadian investor has acquired the 1980s cold-storage facility at an interesting time in the tenant's history. Sprouts Farmers Market, which uses the asset as its southwest distribution warehouse, recently filed plans for an initial public offering that Bloomberg reports could value the company at as much as $296 million.

Furthermore, Sprouts Farmers Market, which has occupied the facility as a co-tenant for close to a decade, merged with rival Sunflower Farms during May 2012. When the other tenant, European Imports, left the space in late 2012, Sprouts Farmers Market signed a new, 10-year deal to take over the entire building to accommodate its growth from the merger.

Better still for both tenant and owner is that Sprouts has room to expand on the site. "You have a 106,000-square-foot building that sits on a 14-acre-plus site," Bonilla explains. "They have an option in their lease for building of an additional 40,000-60,000 square feet on that site. The tenant could, at any point, go back to WAM and ask to have that developed, to accommodate growth." Bonilla goes on to say that the development factor was another reason for WAM's interest in the property. "They're developers," he adds. "They want to develop product in town. This provides a perfect opportunity to develop something with a tenant already committed."

Finally, there is the aspect that cold-storage facilities are not exactly plentiful in the region. "From the perspective of Sprouts or any other user that needs temperature-controlled or cold-storage space, there's not a lot of inventory to choose from," Bonilla points out. "It creates upward pressure on lease rates. It also creates a situation in which the tenant can't just leave the building to go somewhere else to pay less rent."