Avison Young listing 497,682K SF industrial portfolio that includes two Chicago-area properties

A 497,682-square-foot industrial portfolio that includes properties in the Chicago metro, is on the market. Avison Young was awarded the exclusive sale listing for the portfolio, which is owned by GHP Group, Inc.

The three buildings are mission critical assets used by the owner, a leading importer and manufacture of seasonal products for home living, industrial and recreational use. GHP Group, Inc. is proposing a sale-leaseback of all buildings, which are integral to their supply chain and operations.

Avison Young principals Erik Foster and Mike Wilson, based in the company’s Chicago office and leaders of the firm’s national industrial capital markets group, are working with Avison Young principals, James Hanson, John Hauser and Chris Lydon, also based in Chicago, and Ben Sykes, based in the firm’s Toronto office, to represent GHP Group, Inc.

“This is a unique opportunity for an investor to own a large, fully leased industrial portfolio with buildings in two of North America’s strongest markets” Foster says. “GHP is a global leader in its industry and these facilities and the logistics infrastructure in place are mission critical to operating their business.”

The two Chicago-area buildings in this portfolio are 6440 W. Howard Street in Niles, Illinois—a 162,708-square-foot building with eight dock doors and three drive-in doors—and 1501 Nicholas Boulevard in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, which features 22 dock doors and two drive-in doors in the 225,006-square-foot building. There is a third property at 271 Massey Road in Guelph, Ontario, Canada—a 109,968-square-foot building with five dock doors and one drive-in door.

The largest portion of the portfolio is in the Chicago market, which is seeing strong interest from institutional investors, according to research from Real Capital Analytics. Institutional investors have purchased 36.6 percent of the industrial buildings sold in Chicago in the first three quarters of 2019. Chicago industrial transaction volume for the last four quarters, ending with Q3 2019, totalled $4.66 billion. During Q3 2019, investors purchased $961.6 million of industrial assets in Chicago at an average price per square foot of $87.

Private entities and cross-border buyers represented 35.6 percent and 13.6 percent of buyers of Chicago industrial facilities, respectively. Private owners also made up the largest share of sellers so far in 2019, at 45.3 percent. Institutional investors sold 30.7 percent of Chicago industrial buildings, while users and other owners made up 19.6 percent of sellers. Canadian investors have continued to place capital into the Chicago industrial market, spending $152 million, down from $310 million for all of 2018.

Many of the largest buildings that have sold in the Chicago area over the past year have been fully occupied by tenants in the food or consumer goods industries, including grocers Albertson and Central Grocers, Clorox Company, Home Depot and Sony.