Why Pre-Selling Big Box Industrial Builds Is a Great Strategy

Chuck Belden is a broker at Cushman & Wakefield.

LOS ANGELES—Principal Real Estate Investors has acquired the industrial portfolio known as the March Business Center from a joint venture between Penwood Real Estate Capital Management and Western Realco for $93 million. The newly developed property was purchased in a pre-sale agreement two years ago and the transaction closed when construction completed on the property this month. The Inland Empire property has 1.38 million square feet and has two buildings.

“The seller’s goal was always to monetize the asset in some way, and the fastest way for them to do that was to sell it on a forward or pre-sale basis,” Chuck Belden of Cushman & Wakefield tells GlobeSt.com. “We identified a buyer and then built the property, and over a series of various construction standards over the course of the process deposit money is made on a non-refundable basis. They then close on the transaction upon building completion.” Belden, Kyle Kehner and Tim Pimentel with Cushman & Wakefield’s Inland Empire office represented the seller and the buyer in the sale.