ST. LOUIS—The St. Louis metropolitan area may have been hard hit by the recession, but unemployment has fallen below the national average, and the industrial market in particular has started to come back to life. And Boston-based Great Point Investors has picked this moment to make a big investment in the Metro East submarket by purchasing the Gateway Industrial Portfolio. The two buildings, 7 and 29 Gateway Commerce Center Drive in Edwardsville, IL, total 780,000-square-feet.
“Following a strong first quarter, the industrial market realized additional occupancy growth in the second quarter of 2013,” according to a recent study published by the commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley. “A total of 639,000-square-feet of positive absorption was realized in the quarter as the vacancy rate held at 8.2%. The growth for the industrial sector marks the fourth consecutive quarter of positive absorption with over 2,100,000-square-feet absorbed over that time.”
In addition, the area has also started to see new construction. Contegra Construction Company built 479,000-square-feet of new space at the Westway I distribution building in Edwardsville for Procter & Gamble, giving the Metro East the strongest performance of any of the St. Louis area markets with 510,000-square-feet of absorption, says Cassidy Turley.
TMT Properties, Inc. of Edwardsville sold the Gateway portfolio and was represented by Cassidy Turley's Paul Hilton and Michael Hanrahan, both senior managing directors and principals in the firm's St. Louis' office.
“The state-of-the-art Gateway Industrial Portfolio is located in a highly desirable, modern industrial park in the St. Louis metro area and is leased by strong credit tenants,” says Hilton.
RAND Diversified and Owens and Minor, as well as the national grocer Save-A-Lot lease the buildings in the portfolio. Built in 2001, 7 Gateway Commerce Center Dr. has 360,000-square-feet of industrial space plus 12,000-square-feet of office space. The building at 29 Gateway Commerce Center Dr., built in 2003, has 420,000-square-feet of industrial space. Both buildings are 100% occupied.
Great Point has recently made other moves in the Midwest. As reported last month in GlobeSt.com, they just partnered with HSA Commercial, an industrial developer, to break ground on the first speculative industrial project northern Lake County has seen in a long time; a 218,500-square-foot speculative warehouse at Delany Rd. and Blanchard Rd. in north suburban Waukegan near Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin border.
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
