Black Creek Group Buys San Diego’s Largest Industrial Asset

Denver-based investor Black Creek Group has acquired 2020 Piper Ranch Rd, a 601,417-square-foot multi-tenant industrial building in San Diego, from an unnamed institutional investor. The property is the largest industrial asset in San Diego, located on 31 acres in the Otay Mesa and near the US-Mexico border crossing.

“The industrial sector has seen tremendous growth and strength during the most recent months. 2020 Piper is a prime example of a class-A asset in one of the strongest growth markets on the West Coast,” Bryce Aberg, executive managing director at Cushman & Wakefield, tells GlobeSt.com. “The quality of the real estate and size of the asset was very attractive to institutional capital.” Aberg along with Cushman & Wakefield’s Jeff Cole, Jeff Chiate, Ed Hernandez, Mike Adey and Zach Harman of the firm’s national industrial investment advisory group in Southern California represented the seller in the transaction, while Aberg and Bill Dolan of Cushman and Rob Hixson of CBRE also provided local market leasing expertise.

Properties of this size are a rare investment opportunity in an infill market like San Diego, and the institutional investor interest reflected the opportunity. “The deal activity we procured for 2020 Piper was extremely robust,” says Aberg. “We essentially had every profile of buyer interested in the opportunity to acquire this asset. The volume of interest was about 25% higher than what we typically see in deals of this caliber.”

In addition to the quality of this asset, industrial in general has gotten a boost from the pandemic—particularly assets that attract ecommerce users. This has driven capital demand to the industrial sector. “We have had greater interest in the industrial sector since the pandemic given its strong fundamentals and having performed very well overall, particularly in the eCommerce/logistics segment but certainly other segments as well,” says Aberg. “We are seeing the largest demand for distribution facilities, as well as seeing considerable activity for high quality facilities that are either fully or largely leased to credit tenants as investors seek stable returns during the pandemic environment.”

This demand is expected to spill into next year, and already Aberg is seeing activity pick up for the beginning of the year. “We expect to have a very active 2021 based on the substantial amount of valuation requests we have received,” he says. “We remain optimistic for the industrial investment sector looking ahead in San Diego and across Southern California.”