Broadstone Buys $52M in New Facilities

CHICAGO, MINNEAPOLIS—Broadstone Net Lease, a Rochester, NY-based REIT, is looking for deals in the Chicago and the Twin Cities areas, and in June it plunked down $52.1 million for a Siemens industrial facility in northwest suburban Elgin and a newly constructed Shutterfly production facility in suburban Shakopee, MN.

“We like the Chicago market quite a bit and we also wanted to expand our relationship with Siemens,” Sean Cutt, the company's vice president for acquisitions, tells GlobeSt.com. As reported in Globe St.com last October, the trust bought a manufacturing and office building at 2501 N. Barrington Rd. in northwest suburban Hoffman Estates occupied by Siemens, a subsidiary of Siemens AG, a Germany-based electronics and engineering firm, under a long-term net-lease. The trust paid $36.3 million for that 382,200-square-foot facility.

Located at 1401 Madeline Ln., the 170,000-square-foot Siemens facility in Elgin was offered to BNL on a proprietary basis after last October's sale, Cutt adds. The trust about paid about $23 million, and the transaction carries an initial lease length of 10.5 years, with annual rent increases of more than 2%. Siemens now ranks as one of BNL's top five tenants in annual rental revenue.

And in late 2013, BNL entered into a commitment to acquire the 217,622-square-foot Minneapolis-area facility at 5005 Dean Lakes Blvd. from Ryan Companies, which just completed the building for Shutterfly, an Internet photo company based in Redwoods, CA. The final price was $28.6 million. Shutterfly and BNL have agreed on a new 10-year lease with annual rent increases of 2%. The lease also carries three 5-year renewal options.

Year-to-date, BNL has acquired 22 properties for nearly $108 million. The trust now has holdings in 212 properties in 31 states.

"This is BNL's second Siemens acquisition in the last eight months, and our first with Shutterfly, a company that is bringing hundreds of new jobs to the Shakopee area," said Amy Tait, BNL's chairman and chief executive officer, in a prepared statement. "Given our strong inflows of new equity and recently announced expansion of unsecured borrowing capacity, we welcome new acquisition opportunities throughout the US."