JESSUP, MD — Manekin LLC, a leading commercial real estate investor, developer and operating company in the Mid-Atlantic, announced that MCA Assateague JV LLC has acquired the 60-acre Baltimore Washington Logistics Center for an undisclosed sum.
The buyer is a joint venture between Boston-based AEW Capital Management and Manekin LLC of Columbia, Maryland. AEW acquired the property on behalf of one of its separate account clients.
Manekin LLC’s Owen Rouse, senior vice president, capital markets and John Graham, managing director put the deal together as investment advisors and also represented the ownership group in the acquisition, while Cris Abramson and Brian Kruger with Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller.
Located at 7600 Assateague Dr. in Jessup, Maryland at the intersection of Route 1 and Route 175, the 730,000 s/f distribution center facility was formerly occupied by Giant Food as its main dry-goods warehouse until 2013.
Baltimore Washington Logistics Center was built in phases from 1972 to 1974 as the main distribution facility of Giant Food, a Maryland-based regional grocery chain. When the center became surplus property by Giant /Ahold in 2013, the property was acquired by the current seller Madison-SP Assateague LLC, a venture between New York Life Real Estate Investors and a local operator Mosaic Realty Partners.
In addition to expanding the existing building by 120,000 s/f, the new ownership plans to speculatively develop an additional 160,000 s/f industrial building on the site, resulting in over 1 million s/f available for lease. Once the expansion is complete, the site will still be able to accommodate at least 400 trailer parking spaces (one of the largest counts in the region).
Rouse said that “the size, location and logistical capacity are the elements of the property that make this investment a great opportunity. It is the absolute bullseye between Baltimore and Washington DC, and there is nothing like it in the market.”
The Baltimore/Washington Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area comprises the 4th largest and most affluent, educated population in the U.S. and encompasses 10.2 million residents growing at 4% annually. As many as 120 million consumers can be reached overnight making the area a huge draw for distribution companies that need to get their goods to consumers. Additionally, the property has a substantial locational advantage over other “big box” distribution and logistics facilities that serve the Mid-Atlantic from Lehigh Valley as the Jessup facility is located closer to the population of the CMSA and thus able to undercut drayage costs and times from Eastern Pennsylvania.
Michael Elardo, Jared Ross and Michael Kimmel out of Cushman & Wakefield’s Baltimore office are handling the leasing for Baltimore Washington Logistics Center.