300,000-SF Taunton Sale Puts CBRE Near $60M in Q1 2018 Industrial Trades

March 29, 2018 — By Joe Clements

00 John Quincy Adams Rd., Taunton MA

TAUNTON—Headlined with this week’s $22 million trade of 400 John Quincy Adams Rd., CBRE Boston Capital Markets is wrapping up the opening frame of 2018 on an industrial-scale spree, having completed three warehouse transactions totaling $58 million this month alone. Besides selling the 300,000-sf net-leased Taunton warehouse to Stockbridge Capital Group, CBRE Boston’s contingent helped NorthBridge Partners flip a cold storage facility in Medford for a quick gain and separately oversaw the purchase of a 166,000-sf Franklin portfolio by none other than TIAA, now known as TH Real Estate.

Calls to CBRE Boston to discuss the results were not returned by press deadline, but observers point to this year’s takeover of Transwestern Consulting Group’s Boston office that united its Capital Markets division with CBRE’s Industrial & Office team for helping foment the busy March. Led by principals Brian Doherty and David J. Pergola, CBRE’s existing crew had been overseeing the Taunton assignment while TCG’s crew that includes principals Christopher Skeffington and Roy Sandeman plus Kristin Joyce took the lead on NorthBridge’s asset and the Franklin property, a 165,000-sf package for which they were representing longtime owner Hall Royce LLC. Other members of the CBRE Capital Markets unit include Vice President Sara Forino and John Eder.

NorthBridge principals did not respond to an inquiry regarding its divestment of 23 Sycamore Ave. for $18.5 million, the Wakefield-based firm having purchased the 90,850-sf building in October for $12.4 million. Chicago-based SCG’s willingness to spend over $200 per sf for a vacant warehouse underscores the scarcity of high-bay, “last-mile” industrial, maintains one CRE professional active in that sector. “Nothing is hotter right now” than urban industrial, relays the market watcher marveling at the rapid escalation in value of 23 Sycamore Ave., its exchange barely five months earlier at $136 per sf.

NorthBridge is now entering its fourth year in business founded by principals Dean W. Atkins and Greg Lauze, the group having since amassed over $200 million of investments regionally. They last autumn merged with principals from Hall Royce LLC, seller of the Franklin asset in a JV with Guggenheim Partners, and will continue to use the NorthBridge moniker.

South of town in Taunton, CBRE Boston advised seller CalSTRS, the state of California’s teachers’ pension fund, and procured 400 John Hancock Rd.’s buyer, Broadstone Net Lease Properties, that niche investor reportedly attracted by a long-term lease with General Dynamics. CalSTRS had been a longtime steward of the asset, securing it in September 1999 for $18 million, the facility a dozen years old at that point. A location on 25 acres in the Myles Standish Industrial Park was among the attributes pitched to investors about 400 John Quincy Adams Rd., that business cluster right off Route 24 and connecting to the South Coast and northward Route 128/Interstate 95.

The Franklin endeavor involves 157 and 165 Grove St., assets developed in the early 2000s by well-known industrial developer Maggiore Cos. Hall Royce had teamed with Guggenheim in July 2007 to purchase the buildings for $15.8 million, 75,550 sf comprising 157 Grove St. and 90,000 sf constituting 165 Grove St. They had come on line in 2002 and 2004. At the time of its sale to TIAA, the Grove Street Business Center was fully leased to a dozen tenants. One document puts the asking rent there between $6.50 to $6.96 per sf.

TH Real Estate appears to have a yen for suburban Boston industrial these days, one that a year ago led to its buying One Beeman Rd. in Northborough from Stockbridge Capital Group, paying $33.3 million for the 342,900-sf warehouse leased to FedEx. The brokers there? The team formerly known as TCG’s Capital Markets Group now on board at CBRE Boston, including Andrew Stone.