A New York-based real estate investment firm said it has purchased a massive FedEx distribution center in South Windsor for $50 million.
Metropolitan Realty Associates on Tuesday revealed itself as the buyer of the 304,000-square-foot facility that sits on 63 acres at 456 Sullivan Ave. The property, which is the sixth largest taxpayer in town, had been under contract for more than a month.
MRA said Clarion Partners provided equity for the venture.
The buyers are getting in on Connecticut’s hot industrial real estate market that has blossomed in recent years thanks to e-commerce and other companies, like Amazon and others, increasingly needing warehouse space to store their goods closer to customers.
“The rise of ecommerce has made such locations a strategic investment opportunity,” said Gary Rufrano, Clarion Partners’ co-head of national acquisitions. “We are delighted to establish a presence in the central Connecticut market with this high-quality, mission-critical facility occupied by a blue-chip tenant.”
The seller is a New Jersey-based entity, FEM Sullivan Road LLC, which bought the facility ‒ constructed in 2012 ‒ for $32.2 million the following year.
The distribution center is larger today than it was then, after an 80,000-square-foot expansion completed in 2015.
FedEx has 10 years remaining on its initial lease commitment, and has options to extend by another 10 years after that, according to Newmark Net Lease Capital Markets, which represented FEM in the transaction.
“Central Connecticut is an established logistics market in the northeast providing direct access to Boston and New York City, two of the most dense markets on the eastern seaboard and we are excited about the long-term prospects of this property and the strength of the South Windsor/Hartford market,” said MRA CEO Joseph A. Farkas. “This was a unique opportunity to own a Class A asset in a supply-constrained area with a major national tenant.”
