AMB Invests Another $21M in Gratigny

MIAMI-AMB Property LP has acquired the industrial property at 3301 NW 125th St. for nearly $21.1 million. It consists of a 234,000-sf main building, a 7,500-sf truck maintenance facility and five acres for trailer storage.

It is currently 100% leased to Gordon Food Service. The seller, Sternlieb Holdings LP, is an entity of the Sternlieb family and the original owner of the property. Sternlieb founded Henry Lee Foods and retained the asset after selling its company to Gordon.

One year remains on the Gordon lease, according to Brian Smith, senior director of industrial brokerage in the local office of Cushman & Wakefield. Smith and his partner, Wayne Ramoski, also a C&W senior director here, represented both sides in the transaction and are currently representing AMB in negotiating a long-term renewal with Gordon.

Smith tells GlobeSt.com that there were a number of bidders for the property, which was built in 1980, and AMB surfaced as the highest bidder. "Over the past three and a half years, we have sold seven properties totaling just over 1.1 million sf within the Gratigny Central submarket to AMB," he says. "The entire submarket consists of just over six million sf."

San Francisco-based AMB is among the nation's largest industrial property owners. With this buy, Smith says it now owns 1.4 million sf in this submarket. Citing the lease negotiations now under way, he declined to disclose the asking rent rate for the property.

According to second-quarter 2007 industrial market reports from several local brokerage firms, vacancy rates throughout the Miami-Dade industrial market are near all-time lows and rent rates are near all-time highs. A consensus among the reports puts the average asking rent rates in a range of between approximately $6.70 per sf and nearly $10 per sf, depending on the individual submarket and property.