Pan American Aerial shows location of industrial facility in El Paso.

EL PASO, TX—Los Angeles-based BH Properties bought a 655,000-square-foot industrial building from Sweden-based Electrolux in 2009 and leased it back until February 2014, says Bill Hardy, senior vice president of asset management and leasing with BH Properties. The property is located at 9600 Pan American Dr. Champlain Cable Corporation occupies about 117,000 square feet in the building and approximately 128,000 square feet is unoccupied.

A business unit of Electrolux Group has leased approximately 409,180 square feet of the building. Including recently completed leases at a BH Properties’ industrial campus in Fort Worth, TX, the Electrolux lease pushes BH to a total of more than 1.157 million square feet of leasing activity in Texas in the last few months.

Terms of the five-year lease for the global manufacturer of appliances and related products were not disclosed. Cushman & Wakefield | PIRES International’s managing partner, Brett Preston, SIOR, CCIM and David Hingst were the only brokers involved.

Preston tells GlobeSt.com: “We are pleased that Electrolux chose to return to the El Paso market and in the same building that they had previously occupied. We enjoy working with BH Properties because they are very much a hands-on operator and focused on deal making.”

Electrolux has a maquiladora manufacturing facility across the border from El Paso in Ciudad Juarez. Juarez is one of the most active maquiladora locations in all of Mexico, with more than 300 manufacturing operations for major corporations such as Bosch, Foxconn, Flextronics and Tyco Electronics. El Paso and Juarez, Chihuahua are connected by three bridges and form one of the world’s largest international border economies. Ciudad Juarez’s maquiladora manufacturing activity is the biggest driver of El Paso’s economy, followed by a substantial US military presence.

Cushman & Wakefield | PIRES International’s fourth quarter 2015 industrial market report states that the unemployment rate in El Paso fell during 2015 from 5.8% to 5.2%. El Paso’s industrial vacancy rate dipped below 9% and landlords are achieving the best rental rates in a decade.

Recently signed deals at BH Properties’ former Radio Shack distribution center in Fort Worth include 318,000 square feet to The Marco Company and 430,000 square feet of combined space to Dunavant Enterprises Inc., Walmart, Saddle Creek Logistics and United Refrigeration.