JLL closes sale of fully leased Houston-area distribution center

HOUSTON, June 2, 2020 – JLL Capital Markets announces that it has closed the sale of Cedar Crossing Distribution Center, a 100-percent leased, single-tenant, 129,527-square-foot distribution facility in the Houston-area community of Baytown, Texas.

JLL marketed the property on behalf of the seller, Mountain West Industrial Properties and American National Insurance Company. High Street Logistics Properties purchased the asset.

Completed in 2009, Cedar Crossing Distribution Center is fully leased to Merih Cotton Corporation, a family owned and operated Houston-area cotton distributor that has been in business for upwards of 35 years. The front-load building features a 24-foot clear height, 33 dock-high doors, one drive-up ramp and low office finish. Situated on 7.37 acres at 3710 Cedar Blvd., the property provides exceptional access to the Port of Houston’s two dedicated container terminals, Barbour’s Cut (5.6 miles) and Bayport Container Terminal (9.4 miles). Cedar Crossing Distribution Center is also within the 15,000-acre Cedar Port Industrial Park, which is the largest master-planned, rail-served industrial park in North America. 

The JLL Industrial Capital Markets team that represented the seller was led by Managing Director Trent Agnew, Senior Managing Director Rusty Tamlyn, Director Charlie Strauss and Analyst Ethan Goldberg along with Senior Vice President Richard Quarles, who leased the building on behalf of the seller.

“The Southeast Industrial submarket lacks optionality for smaller tenants, as most development in the area is focused on big box buildings, so Cedar Crossing will always have significant interest from tenants that need to be near the Port of Houston,” Agnew said. “We were extremely pleased with both the buyer and seller’s ability to execute this transaction during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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Mountain West Industrial Properties specializes in the development, ownership and operation of multi-tenant industrial real estate assets. The company takes an entrepreneurial, hands on approach with regards to its properties, user clients, and partners. Mountain West Industrial Properties prides itself on its focused and responsible oversight in its portfolio managements and investments, providing a superior service to tenants, users and investors. By specializing in flex and bulk distribution warehouse properties, the firm is afforded a deep understanding of the market while growing its expertise in the needs and requirements of its clients. Mountain West focuses its services in the industrial sector via three distinct strategies: acquisition, development and third-party management. 

American National Insurance Company (American National), headquartered in Galveston, Texas, was founded in 1905 and is licensed in all states except New York. American National and its subsidiaries offer a broad line of products and services, which include life insurance, annuities, health insurance, credit insurance, pension products and property and casualty insurance for personal lines, agribusiness and certain commercial exposures. The family of companies operates in all 50 states. For more information, including company news and investor relations information, visit the company’s web site at americannational.com. 

High Street Logistics Properties was founded in Boston in 2002 by senior executives of one of the nation’s pre-eminent real estate development, investment and services companies. Dedicated to a set of core operating principles based on mutual trust, the founders had a shared vision for establishing an exceptional and scalable industrial private equity real estate investment platform which was both highly entrepreneurial in spirit and institutional in its investment management discipline. Today, with an average of 28 years of combined real estate investment and management experience in myriad investment vehicles including private separate accounts, institutional joint ventures, discretionary funds and public vehicles, High Street’s senior management team and its operating approach reflect the commitment to that vision.

Since its inception, High Street has raised over $1.2 billion of equity capital and acquired over $2.4 billion of industrial and logistics properties for its real estate investment vehicles. With its institutional platform and strong entrepreneurial bias, High Street has attracted capital from leading foreign and domestic institutional investors for both its discretionary investment funds and opportunistic and development separate account/joint ventures.