Baltimore Bulk Warehouse Trades

BALTIMORE-A 222,636-square foot bulk warehouse at 7621 Energy Parkway here has traded for $15.2 million. Industrial Income Trust acquired the fully leased asset from High Street Equity Advisors, a Boston-based private equity firm. Jonathan Carpenter and James Wellschlager of Cassidy Turley’s Capital Markets Group represented High Street Equity Advisors. The long-term tenant is Reliable Churchill, which is the largest distributor of wine and spirits in Maryland.

The property received more than 15 offers, according to Carpenter. “The combination of class A real estate with strong tenancy in a favorable market produced great results for the seller,” he said in a prepared statement. The industrial sector has traditionally been Baltimore’s strong suit for clear reasons—that is, the robust port of Baltimore, which is one of a handful deemed to be ready to handle the expansion of the Panama Canal. Macroeconomic metrics that look at Baltimore as a whole, however, point to a city that is, like so many in the US, still struggling with the recession.

Recent figures from Cushman Wakefield suggest as much. For its recently-released mid year Mid-Atlantic report, researchers got a surprise with the Baltimore employment numbers. While Washington DC’s employment numbers were basically stagnant—at the same level as they were at the end of 2011—Baltimore, by contrast, had given back all of the job gains it had made since the beginning of the year. “Baltimore lost 25,000 jobs in Q2,” researcher Ken McCarthy said during the conference call discussing the findings. “We suspect it is a seasonal issue.”