(Save the date: RealShare Industrial 2012 comes to The Bankers Club, Miami, December 5 - 6.)

MELBOURNE, FL—In one of the largest commercial property sales in Brevard County in recent years, CIA Developers just snapped up a 14-building industrial portfolio in Melbourne for $9.25 million. With this acquisition, CIA boasts more than 1. 2 million square feet of industrial space on Florida’s Space Coast.

C. Todd Everett, managing director in the Investment Services Group at NAI/Merin Hunter Codman, together with David Knott and Ryan Dinsdale, directors at the firm, represented the seller, MD-based Clarke Enterprises. The portfolio is 86% occupied by about 60 tenants.

“There were challenges with this sale, given it’s in a tertiary market that’s also not a major industrial market like Miami or Orlando,” Everett tells GlobeSt.com. “This was a great deal for both buyer and seller. The buyer ended up getting a property with cash flows from day one.”

Everett says the industrial sale is also notable because, despite its tertiary market status, the industrial portfolio drew significant interest and multiple offers. NAI narrowed the field down to two potential buyers. The two vied for the better part of the year to win the industrial portfolio before CIA was ultimately chosen.

"The Melbourne portfolio is a great value-added purchase for the buyer, strengthening their critical mass in the region,” Knott said in a statement. “At the same time, the sale was done at the right time and price for the seller, whose primary focus is currently in the Washington D.C. area."

The industrial portfolio of class B buildings spans 284,500 square feet. The property spreads across four properties on 30 acres in commerce hub near Melbourne International Airport.

"We see the upside potential for commercial properties in the Palm Bay-Melbourne region and hope to do more deals and attract more investors to the region,” Dinsdale said in a statement. “The market for industrial properties in this area is less competitive than South Florida. As a result, investors in the Space Coast area have the opportunity to purchase properties at higher cap rates that provide yields as much as 250 basis points higher than properties located further south."