Galvanize's sustainable entity has taken a major step to increase its real estate footprint, as it targets areas with strong fundamentals while implementing carbon-friendly practices. The unit, known as Galvanize Real Estate (GRE), announced it purchased a five-asset industrial portfolio in Howard County, Maryland, which spans 683,330 square feet.
The plan for GRE is to make renovations and reduce emissions at the sites by as much as 138 percent at the properties, which includes reducing energy and implementing electrical measures. Also, it intends to install solar at three properties where the energy source is vacant.
According to GRE, the efforts could save roughly 34,802 in CO2e metric tons over three decades.
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The move by the company comes in light of the Building Energy Performance Standard in Maryland set to take effect on June 1, which requires buildings larger than 35,000 square feet to disclose greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, net zero on these buildings must be reached by 2040.
As for why it chose Howard County, which lies between Baltimore and Washington D.C, GRE touted its industrial fundamentals, which include scarce supply, healthy demand and a srong workforce.
“The Baltimore-Washington Industrial portfolio represents a compelling opportunity to showcase our strategy’s scalability and its potential to alleviate the increasing stress on the utility grid through the implementation of a solar PV distributed energy program,” Nicolette Jaze, head of sustainability at GRE, said in a statement.
“We look forward to implementing a wide range of sustainability measures and clean energy assets that will reduce the direct emissions of the portfolio and advance the state’s net zero goals.”
Rachel Reardon, vice president of acquisitions at GRE added: "We are selectively building scale in submarkets where we see strong tenant demand, structural supply constraints, and real potential for profitable decarbonization.
For the firm, this marks the fourth investment made in real estate, with the acquisition taking its total footprint passed 1.6 million square feet.
CBRE National Partners was listed as the manager of the industrial portfolio purchase.
In the first quarter, industrial vacancy ticked up by 30 basis points in April versus the previous month to 8.8 percent, according to a report from CommercialEdge. However, new development is slowing in most markets, which could lead to the category stabilizing in the coming months, the CRE software firm said.
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Anthony Russo
Anthony Russo has been contributing to GlobeSt. since July 2024. Along with CRE, his financial background expands to capital markets, the economy, and consumer issues. Previously, he has written for CapitalWatch and was a senior reporter for The US Sun.
