Clarion Partners Purchases Jacksonville Industrial Building

Clarion Partners LLC has acquired a 300,240-square-foot, Class A industrial building in Jacksonville, Fla., on behalf of a separate account. CBRE arranged the transaction.

The seller was CT Realty in a joint venture with Diamond Realty Investments. The transaction’s dollar value was not disclosed.

The newly completed Building 200 at 9909 Pritchard Blvd. is fully occupied by IPEX USA LLC, a wholesale supplier of specialized PVC and thermoplastic piping systems.

The structure is sited within the master-planned Florida Gateway Logistic Park, in Jacksonville’s West Side submarket, and features 36-foot clear height, cross-dock loading, 86 dock doors, four drive-in doors, ESFR sprinkler systems, 168 car parking spaces and 138 trailer parking spaces.

CBRE National Partners’ Vice Chairmen Jose Lobón, Trey Barry, Frank Fallon, along with Chris Riley, president, U.S. Industrial & Logistics, Capital Markets, and Royce Rose, senior financial analyst, represented the sellers, assisted by CBRE’s Alain Bonvecchio, financial consultant, and Gabriel Braun, associate.

In a prepared statement, Lobón described the property as “strategically located for mega-regional distribution,” with a location from which 60 million consumers can be reached within an eight-hour drive. The building has immediate access to I-295 and easy connections to the entire Southeast via I-10 and I-95.

Staying warm

Jacksonville’s industrial space market consists of about 110 million square feet, of which 4.9 percent is vacant. Nearly 4.9 million square feet of space is currently under development, according to a third-quarter report from JLL.

Year-to-date, deliveries of about 4.4 million square feet have outpaced absorption of about 2.4 million square feet. The overall direct asking rent is $7.95 per square foot.

The IPEX lease is one of the top five lease transactions noted by JLL in the report, and there has been plenty of other recent activity in Jacksonville.

In August, Hillwood acquired a 1.4 million-square-foot, two-building portfolio from Invesco Real Estate, in a deal also arranged by CBRE.

In July, IWH Capital purchased a 300,000-square-foot, six building industrial campus from GF Florida for $35 million. Again, CBRE represented the buyer.

Also in July, Merritt Properties got under way on the second phase of Imeson Land Business Park. The three-building first phase was completed in 2022 and is already 88 percent leased.