Avison Young has negotiated a 149,474-square-foot industrial building sale in the Chicago market. The property, which is fully leased to Fort Dearborn Company, is at 6035 Gross Point Road in Niles, Illinois.
Avison Young Principals Erik Foster and Mike Wilson, who are both members of the company’s national industrial capital markets group, represented owners Dermody Properties and Chicago-based Wanxiang America Real Estate Group in the sale. The buyer was Plymouth Industrial REIT, based in Boston.
Fort Dearborn Company is one of the country’s largest producers of labels for consumer goods packaging. The company serves markets such as food and beverage, household and personal care products, including many leading consumer brands. The company is a long-time tenant in the building.
The building is located in proximity to O’Hare International Airport, a major driver of industrial activity in the Chicago market. Industrial investment activity has remained strong in the past year, despite the pandemic. From Q2 2020 through Q1 2021, there were 122 industrial sales totalling $400 million in the O’Hare submarket, according to CoStar. The most activity was seen in the fourth quarter of 2020, when 46 transactions totaling $224.3 million were recorded.
Developers continue to focus on the O’Hare submarket due to its central location and connection to O’Hare and major transportation corridors. In 2020, 2.1 million square feet of new industrial product in 13 buildings was added in the O’Hare submarket. This included the large delivery at 1155 Devon Ave. in Itasca, a 248,625-sf speculative property developed by Bridge Development Partners. The construction pipeline in O’Hare is currently 503,890 square feet. Leasing activity was approximately 1.3 million square feet at the end of Q1 2021 and the vacancy rate was 7%.
