According to Venture One’s Matt Goode, the building located at 1300 Naperville Road is an interesting one. Located in the heart of Romeoville, in the I-55 corridor, it was built in the very late 1970s and then added on to.
“It had an unbelievable amount of infrastructure in place,” Goode said, Principal at Venture One Real Estate. “It had 12,000 amps of power, an extra 12-acres of land, high finish office, had been corporately maintained, was 24-foot clear, and had 24 docks.”
“So it’s not your modern 30-foot clear, or higher, distribution building,” Goode continued. “It was a 600,000 square feet manufacturing building that was built for Lowrey Organ Company. When they left, Sharp Electronics occupied it.”
Goode said Venture One acquired the building in March of 2013—with a six month lease back to Sharp—because of the location, and infrastructure that it had, with plans to redevelop and fix it.
“We were going to add docks, and trailer parking, amongst a few other things,” he said. “Sharp was leaving and taking their operation to different markets. Right at the onset of our marketing, we received interest from Magid Glove and Safety LLC. They were a manufacturer coming out of the city looking for the type of building that we had.”
“It had the office, manufacturing- infrastructure, but it was actually a location they were not considering at that time,” Goode noted. “They were looking on the North side of the city, but the interesting thing about the building is that it was really the only building, in all of Chicago, that had that infrastructure and specifications that they were looking for.”
Due to all of those factors, Goode said everything ended up working out, and Venture One secured a long-term lease with Magid about three months after closing their deal from Sharp. “Magid had a purchase option, and they opted to purchase the building earlier this year.”
With Magid purchasing the building earlier this year, the deal became one of the top user sales transaction of 2014.
“We sold them the building as is,” said Goode. “What’s funny is they did actually follow through with some of the redevelopment elements that we were going to bring into play. They added the docks, and renovated the office. They also didn’t need the whole building so they multi-tenanted it, and have since leased either all, or some, of what they had available.”
“We have a good relationship with Magid,” Goode continued. “They’re a great company and they’ve really done a great job with the building. I think it was a fair deal for the both of us. They got a good value because of the infrastructure there, and we did as well. So it’s really one of those deals where everybody won.”
Goode also thinks that things worked out for Sharp as well, as the large international company’s goal was to leave the market.
“It started out as a longer term lease back,” he said. “They were going to lease it back for 18 months, and then they went to 12, and finally six. This is all during their marketing period, and we were actually the only company willing to do a six month lease back. This was late 2012, early 2013, and the market was different than it is today.”
“Investors weren’t really willing to take the risk of a six month lease back, knowing that the company was leaving,” Goode noted. “Sharp wanted to get out in six months, and we gave them a way to do that. For that, I think we got a fair value for the building when we bought it. And it actually allowed us to deliver the building to Magid for a fair value. Sharp did well, we did well, and I think Magid’s really happy.”
