In June of 2011, Ed Redlich toured Panama on a trade mission with a delegation arranged by Miami-Dade County’s Office of Economic Development & International Trade (OEDIT) to learn more about the country, the Canal and the logistics supply chain. One year later, Gerard Keating read the story about Redlich’s trip to Panama. (Read more about this story at Miami and the Panama Canal Expansion >>>). Impressed by the industrial Realtor’s experience, he then made contact. Keating had moved from Chicago to live in Panama for six months to also learn more about real estate and logistics in the epicenter of Latin America. However, frustrated by some of the barriers and the lack of industrial real estate investments and business opportunities in both Panama and Chicago, he turned to explore Miami; “an American city in Latin America”.

In addition to their explorations of Panama, Keating and Redlich had something else in common. They were both members of the most prestigious industrial real estate organization in the world; the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR). Keating explained that he would very much like to invest in Miami. He was specifically looking for a large industrial property that was near Port Miami and rail served. Redlich immediately knew that there was only one such property available for sale that would suit Keating’s requirement. The property’s owner was represented by Alex Bernaldo and Jon Aibel both with Americas Industrial Realty Corp. and coincidentally both members of SIOR. From there, the four SIOR’s worked on perfecting a successful purchase and sale closing.

The subject property is a 485,000 sq. ft. warehouse building that sits on nearly twenty acres. It is located at 725 Southeast 9th Court in Hialeah in the Airport East sub-market. It was originally constructed in 1960 by Winn-Dixie for their distribution center. Other prior tenants included Econocaribe, Florida Utility and Bernuth Agencies. The owner of the property was the State of Michigan whose adviser was AEW. It was determined that the ownership no longer wanted the property in their portfolio so AEW was instructed to sell the asset as soon as possible. In addition, AEW was more focused on their recent trophy-like acquisition of Flagler Station in Medley; a 5 million sq. ft. business park.

ComReal Miami Industrial Team: Edison Vasquez, Ed Redlich and Chris Spear

After several rounds of negotiations, due diligence inspections, market studies and financing options, ComReal assisted Keating close on the property under KR Miami, LLC for a purchase price of $11,250,000 (or about $23 per sq. ft.). Miami’s overall industrial market is very active. The total market size is about 320M sq. ft. with a vacancy rate under 7%. The sub-market of Hialeah is about 36M sq. ft. with a similar vacancy rate. The property has a very central location being in the middle of Port Miami and Miami International Airport. What is most interesting about this property is once the CSX railroad is re-constructed, the property will be the only warehouse space over 100,000 sq. ft. available in Miami-Dade County with rail service!

KR Miami is also considering demolishing the existing warehouse then constructing a new 400,000 sq. ft. class A warehouses. Of the nine other warehouse projects either recently completed and/or still under construction, Miami International Logistics Center would be the only port-centric warehouse development. The close proximity to Port Miami offers more efficient drayage operations especially with increasing fuel costs and time on the road. Acquiring foreign trade zone (FTZ) status for the property is also being considered by the ownership.

On a side note, this is ComReal’s third transaction over $10M in just the past seven months. Other deals include the sale of $10.4M warehouse in Deerfield and a $12.7M warehouse in Coconut Creek. ComReal’s warehouse team consisting of Ed Redlich, Chris Spear and Edison Vasquez have been retained to lease the property on behalf of KR Miami. For more information, please call them at 786-433-2380 and/or view the brochure for the property at Miami International Logistics Center. >>>