LBA Realty Buys Sweetwater Industrial Park For $198M
LBA’s Phil Belling with Dolphin Commerce Center (Hoaghospitalfoundation, Google Maps)
LBA Realty is closing out the year with a mega-priced industrial purchase in Sweetwater.
The Irvine, California-based commercial real estate firm paid $198 million for Dolphin Commerce Center at 11200 Northwest 21st Street, 11250 Northwest 25 Street and 11350 Northwest 25 Street, records show. LBA assumed a $50 million mortgage from Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.
The five-building business park spanning 701,000 square feet was completed in 1998 and 1999, records show. The deal breaks down to $282 per square foot.
The seller, an affiliate of Iowa-based Principal Real Estate Partners, paid $45 million for the 37.4-acre site in 2004.
Led by managing principal Phil Belling, LBA is bullish about the South Florida industrial market. Last year, company affiliate LBA Logistics and its partner, Doral-based Easton Group, bought a warehouse in Doral for $20 million. The joint venture also paid $29.4 million for a 26.4-acre industrial development site in Hialeah to build spec warehouses.
Outside of South Florida, LBA was involved in the biggest office deal in Los Angeles this year. In April, the company sold a stake in One Culver, an eight-story office tower, to Blackstone for $510 million. This month, LBA Logistics paid $28 million for a Chicago warehouse.
LBA’s purchase of Dolphin Commerce Center is the second largest industrial deal in South Florida over the past 12 months. In November, Boston-based TA Realty paid $241 million for a Medley industrial park with 12 warehouses.
The industrial market remains one of the strongest segments of commercial real estate. In the third quarter, Miami-Dade industrial landlords jacked up the average asking rent to $14.35 a square foot, up $5.51 compared to the same period last year, according to a JLL report. A 1.8 percent vacancy rate in the third quarter was the lowest in Miami-Dade industrial market history. About 40 percent of new warehouses and industrial buildings under construction in the third quarter were pre-leased, JLL found.
