“This is one of Indianapolis' original industrial parks,” he adds, and unlike the big distribution boxes in suburban Plainfield, its location in an older infill submarket near downtown means workers have easy access via train and bus.

The largest building in Sealy's portion of Park 100 is 323,000 square feet, but the average size is just about 150,000 square feet. Devaney calls the product here class A or perhaps A-. Each is a functional building that has had no problem attracting users, who now occupy 92% of the total space. And many of these 25 tenants have been committed to the park for years and show no sign of leaving.

For Sealy and the other bidders, the construction and nearly complete lease-ups of three speculative buildings just to the east validated Park 100. The market certainly show no sign of slowing down in the near future. According to JLL, the market broke records in 2016, with a total of nearly eight million square feet of net absorption. And sales activity was also brisk, with $684 million in sales last year.

Devaney expects investment dollars to continue pouring into the metro area's industrial market. But finding another offering like this, a compact portfolio of more than one million square feet, along with a stable group of smaller tenants, will be difficult. “This one was a bit unique.”

INDIANAPOLIS—Sealy and Co. has just purchased the 1.1 million square foot North by Northwest industrial portfolio in Indianapolis from Minneapolis-based Biynah Industrial Partners. In doing so, Sealy beat out a group of regional and national investors competing for the seven-building property.

JLL's international director John Huguenard, managing director Sean Devaney and senior vice president Ed Halaburt represented Sealy in the transaction. And considering the local market's momentum, team members were not surprised to see a such a strong group of potential buyers express interest.

“The fundamentals are very strong,” Devaney tells GlobeSt.com, largely due to Indianapolis' central location and an abundance of cheap land, both attributes looked for by the developers of warehouse and distribution buildings. “It's a market that continues to thrive.”

Furthermore, this deal allowed Sealy to break into Indianapolis in a big way. “It's hard to enter a new market with just one or two buildings,” says Devaney. “It's easier to wrap your head around properties in a single park setting.” These seven are all clustered together in Park 100, a Duke-built business park popular with light industrial and bulk users. Sealy can now bring the economies of scale to its operations here, and will also find it far easier to help tenants move to other buildings if they need a change. “Offering flexibility within the portfolio was key.”

“This is one of Indianapolis' original industrial parks,” he adds, and unlike the big distribution boxes in suburban Plainfield, its location in an older infill submarket near downtown means workers have easy access via train and bus.

The largest building in Sealy's portion of Park 100 is 323,000 square feet, but the average size is just about 150,000 square feet. Devaney calls the product here class A or perhaps A-. Each is a functional building that has had no problem attracting users, who now occupy 92% of the total space. And many of these 25 tenants have been committed to the park for years and show no sign of leaving.

For Sealy and the other bidders, the construction and nearly complete lease-ups of three speculative buildings just to the east validated Park 100. The market certainly show no sign of slowing down in the near future. According to JLL, the market broke records in 2016, with a total of nearly eight million square feet of net absorption. And sales activity was also brisk, with $684 million in sales last year.

Devaney expects investment dollars to continue pouring into the metro area's industrial market. But finding another offering like this, a compact portfolio of more than one million square feet, along with a stable group of smaller tenants, will be difficult. “This one was a bit unique.”