ING Clarion Acquires 406,000-SF Warehouse

(To read more on the industrial market and the net lease market, click here.)

FULLERTON, CA-ING Clarion of New York City has acquired a 406,261-sf fully leased class A distribution facility from Dallas-based Invesco Realty Advisors, according to Steve Batcheller of the Newport Beach office of CB Richard Ellis. Batcheller, who negotiated the deal along with fellow CBRE brokers Darla Longo of the firm’s Ontario office, Barbara Emmons of Los Angeles and Paul Jones of Newport Beach, tells GlobeSt.com that the property attracted bids from a host of pension fund advisers and REITs because of the extremely strong investor demand for quality net-leased industrial assets.

The property, at 458 E. Lambert Rd., was built in two phases in 1974 and 1999. It is occupied by a credit tenant with three years left on its lease.

Batcheller tells GlobeSt.com that the investor interest in the property underscores the continuing demand for class A industrial assets leased to quality tenants in primary port-related distribution centers. Investor demand for such properties is strong in all of the primary markets in the US, he comments, but the demand is strongest for properties in Southern California, which he describes as the top market in the country.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but market reports indicate that comparable industrial properties in Orange County are trading in the range of $100 to $110 per sf. The building is in the 108-million-sf North Orange County submarket, the largest in the county’s 246-million-sf industrial market, according to the latest quarterly report by CB Richard Ellis.

The CBRE report, which covers the first quarter of 2007, points out that the county’s industrial market has continued to post historically low availability and vacancy rates in the first quarter of this year, with the region’s availability rate at about 5.4%. Within the overall market, the North Orange County market maintains one of the county’s lowest availability rates, 3.7%, which is 20% lower in the first quarter this year than it was in the first quarter last year.