New York firm buys Lehigh Valley warehouse for $11.7M
A New York-based real estate business is growing its footprint in the hot Lehigh Valley industrial market — this time through an acquisition.
Indus Realty Trust Inc. on Thursday announced it has purchased a fully leased 127,500-square-foot industrial building in the Lehigh Valley for $11.7 million. While the company did not disclose the location, a deed recorded Wednesday in Lehigh County shows Indus bought the building at 6355 Farm Bureau Road in Upper Macungie Township from Jamble Enterprises.
Property records show the warehouse was built in 1982 on 13.7 acres.
In a prior news release, Indus said the property was fully leased through December 2022 to a “subsidiary of a publicly traded multinational chemical company.” That appears to fit the description of LyondellBasell, one of the world’s largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies that lists the Farm Bureau Road address as a location on its website.
“We are thrilled to expand our presence in the core Lehigh Valley market with a building that is leased to a credit tenant,” Indus President and CEO Michael Gamzon said in a news release. “We believe this acquisition provides the opportunity to create significant value over time as the current in-place rent is below market and the excess land on the site provides options for potential future improvements.”
Indus, formerly known as Griffin Industrial Realty Inc., now owns about 1.4 million square feet across seven industrial buildings in the Lehigh Valley, which are fully leased. One of those buildings,
a 134,000-square-foot structure at 6975 Ambassador Drive in Upper Macungie, is just a mile from the Farm Bureau Road site.
Overall, Indus owns 42 buildings totaling 4.7 million square feet in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida. Of that, 31 are industrial or logistics buildings, totaling about 4.3
million square feet. That means, by square footage, the Lehigh Valley makes up about one-third of Indus’ industrial portfolio.
Indus also is looking to further grow its Lehigh Valley presence.
First, the company expects to complete a 103,000-square-foot building at 4741 Chapmans Road in South Whitehall Township
in the fourth quarter. Property records show Indus bought the 14.4-acre plot of land in late 2019 for $1.85 million. Indus expects to spend nearly $9 million on the building’s construction, according to its annual report.
Second, Indus has land under agreement in Allentown along IronPigs Way near American
Parkway, behind center field of Coca-Cola Park, where it wants to build a 206,000-square-foot warehouse.
Per its annual report, Indus said it has an 18-acre parcel of land under agreement for a purchase price of $3.1 million, as well as an adjacent 5-acre site for $1.1 million.
The agreements are contingent on Indus obtaining all government approvals for the planned development.
Indus expects it could complete the building in the fourth quarter of 2022.