JLL secures $20M loan for cold storage facility near Port Newark-Elizabeth

MORRISTOWN, N.J., May 18, 2020 – JLL Capital Markets announced today that it has arranged a $20 million refinancing for 735 Dowd Ave., a 175,000-square-foot cold-storage facility near Port Newark-Elizabeth in the suburban New York City community of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

JLL worked on behalf of the borrower, Elberon Development Group, to place the 20-year, fixed-rate loan with a life insurance company. Loan proceeds were used to refinance the existing debt on the property.

Completed in 2013, the property was a build-to-suit cold storage facility for Seafrigo, a France-based food distributor specializing in handling chilled, frozen and ambient products. The cold storage building features 40-foot clear heights, 16,000 square feet of two-story office space, 25 tailboards and temperature-controlled rooms ranging from -10 degrees up to 55 degrees.

The property is strategically located within one mile off Exit 13A on Interstate 95 (The New Jersey Turnpike), less than one mile from Route 9 and just south of North Avenue. 735 Dowd Ave. is within two miles from Newark Liberty International Airport and five miles from Port Newark-Elizabeth, one of the largest container ports in the country. The facility is located within the Elizabeth Northern NJ industrial submarket, which had a vacancy rate of 3.4 percent at the end of Q1 2020, and cold storage product in the submarket is fully leased. The submarket has continued to demonstrate excellent fundamentals over the years as vacancy rates have remained below five percent since Q4 2015, and triple-net direct rents have grown 2.2 percent quarter-over-quarter in the same timeframe.

The JLL Capital Markets team representing the borrower was led by Senior Managing Directors Michael Klein and Jon Mikula and Analyst Carlos Silva.

“JLL is pleased to have worked on Elberon Development’s behalf to secure very attractive long-term debt on the property,” Klein said. “Demand for high-quality, state-of-the-art refrigerated warehouse properties continues to increase, and the property’s location with immediate access to the port, airport and highway infrastructure made this a highly sought-after loan for the lender.”

JLL Capital Markets is a full-service global provider of capital solutions for real estate investors and occupiers. The firm's in-depth local market and global investor knowledge delivers the best-in-class solutions for clients — whether investment advisory, debt placement, equity placement or a recapitalization. The firm has more than 3,700 Capital Markets specialists worldwide with offices in nearly 50 countries.

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