By Jack Stubbs
An industrial asset that includes a 12-acre plot of adjacent wetland in Renton has recently changed hands.
On Wednesday, October 4th, a three-parcel property in Renton—which includes a distribution warehouse—sold for $67.1 million, or roughly $140 per square foot, according to public records filed with King County. The buyer was New York-based Clarion Partners, a real estate investment management company that operates internationally. The seller was UK-based global real estate investment management company TH Real Estate, an affiliate of Nuveen, LLC.
Douglas Klein, senior vice president and partner at Kidder Mathews, was the listing agent for the leasing and also assisted CBRE on the sale. CBRE was the official listing agent for the sale.
The property in Renton, located at 300 Southwest 27th St., is comprised of three parcels totaling 999,532 square feet. The first parcel, sitting on roughly 22 acres of land, contains a 479,100 square foot warehouse building built in 1996. The two other parcels total 12 acres unoccupied vacant industrial land. The property is located 2 miles south of downtown Renton and 13 miles south of Seattle, just half a mile from access to Washington State Route 167.
The warehouse building is currently occupied by three tenants: Graybar, a Fortune 500 company that specializes in supply chain management services and distribution of equipment and materials for the construction, commercial, government, industrial and utility industries; Kraus, a flooring store; and Coca-Cola bottling.
Founded in 1982, Clarion Partners has investments in a wide variety of assets including commercial, retail, industrial, multifamily, residential and hospitality. In terms of the company’s acquisition strategy, Clarion Partners acquires 100 percent ownership interests, forms joint venture partnerships, provides equity capital to developers, and invests in various debt instruments, according to their website.
The company currently has over 300 institutional investors domestically and internationally and $42.8 billion in total assets under management, with over 280 employees across the U.S., Brazil and the U.K., according to their website. The company acquires and manages real estate assets nationwide, with regional offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Boston.
TH Real Estate currently has about $103 billion in assets under management across eighteen countries worldwide, according to the company’s website. Additionally, the company manages a wide-ranging suite of almost 80 funds and mandates that spans both debt and equity across diverse geographies, sectors and investment styles. TH Real Estate is a specialist investment affiliate of Nuveen, LLC, the investment management business of TIAA, a financial services company. The firm’s U.S. portfolio includes 365 assets that span the industrial, mixed-use, multifamily residential, retail and office types.
On July 19th, TH Real Estate placed this industrial asset on the market along with the Lakewood Corporate Center, a 205,000 square foot warehouse facility, which sold to Boston, Massachusetts-based TA Realty for $23.9 million on September 22nd. On September 28th, TH Real Estate sold another asset to Seattle-based Unico Properties for $65 million, the 133,177 square foot World Trade Center North office building.
