ROGERS, MN-It will cost about $2.1 million to buy about 55 acres of farmland here this month for Liberty Property Trust. The company hopes to one day (not this year, however), build roughly 800,000 square feet of build-to-suit or even speculative multitenant industrial on the site.
Dave Jellison, SVP and city manager with the company, tells GlobeSt.com that it was just the right time to jump on the property. “The land butts up against warehouses already. We’re paying a price that there was no way we could have done three-four years ago. It’s a good price even if we don’t build anything in the next 12 to 18 months,” he says.
Liberty will do a master plan for what could go on the property, Jellison says. He said the company could try to find a build-to-suit client, for a product that is starting to move today in the Minneapolis area, or could hold until speculative as the market improves. “It’s been getting better, especially for newer warehouse buildings,” Jellison says. “When tenants finally come out of the doldrums, they’re going to want newer buildings. A lot of the stuff in the Minneapolis area was built in the 1960s and 70s, and tenants will want more energy efficiency and higher clear heights of a modern building.”
The company owns and manages nearly 3.7 million square feet of office, flex and industrial property in the Minnesota region. Activity picked up in the fourth quarter, Jellison says, with seven lease renewals and three new lease agreements for a total of almost 430,000 square feet.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.