LaSalle pays $51.5 million for industrial portfolio

As seen in ChicagoRealEstateDaily

By: Todd J. Behme October 05, 2011

(Crain’s) — LaSalle Investment Management paid $51.5 million for a portfolio of five industrial buildings, most of them in the Interstate 55 corridor in the southwest suburbs.

LaSalle bought the buildings from Panattoni Development Co. in a deal that closed Friday. The portfolio totals just over 796,000 square feet, with three buildings in Romeoville, one in Bolingbrook and one in north suburban Lincolnshire.

Panattoni thought it was a good time to sell the buildings, as the capital markets are strong for fully leased, institutional-quality industrial buildings in core markets, says John Pagliari, the local partner for Sacramento, Calif.-based Panattoni.

The $51.5-million sale price results in a capitalization rate, or first-year yield, of about 6%, Mr. Pagliari says.

The properties, all built between 1999 and 2008, are 85% leased, with the only vacancy 119,500 square feet at the Bolingbrook building, according to Jeff Devine, a principal with Colliers International who brokered the sale with colleagues Steve Disse and Jeff Kahan.

The smallest building is 98,000 square feet and the largest is 270,000 square feet, according to Mr. Devine. The three Romeoville buildings are in the Windham Lakes Business Park. Tenants include meat company John Morrell & Co.

Both the buyer and the seller did well in the deal, says Mike Tenteris, a senior vice-president at NAI Hiffman who handles industrial investment sales and was not involved in the transaction.

The buildings, mainly those in the southwest suburbs, are “great product,” says Mr. Tenteris, who calls I-55 the “most dynamic submarket in Chicago right now.”

LaSalle, the investment unit of Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., declined to comment.