By Meghan Hall
A major Pierce County industrial deal has flown under the radar for months after closing and has only recently been picked up by the larger industry. Indianapolis-based Duke Realty has purchased the Cubes at DuPont for $221 million, according to industry reporting, making it the largest deal to close in Pierce County in 2020 and one of the largest transactions across the region. Duke acquired the asset from St. Louis, Missouri-based CRG.
The sale was not publicly recorded by Pierce County, but closed in the last quarter of 2020.
“We had an excellent quarter of growth through acquisition and development, which included the acquisition of a high quality, 1.6 million square foot, three-building portfolio in Seattle immediately adjacent to one of our existing developments,” explained Duke Realty’s Chairman and CEO Jim Connor in its fourth quarter and full year 2020 results. “We financed a portion of our acquisitions and developments during the fourth quarter through asset dispositions…”
Duke’s building dispositions totaled $276 million and included one Amazon-leased property in Houston, two leased properties in Indianapolis, as well as properties in Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Located at 2800 Center Drive in DuPont, Wash., the Cubes at DuPont development includes 1.6 million square feet of industrial space. The development includes two new buildings and an existing building. In all, the property is 69 percent leased. The largest building, totaling 747,488 square feet, is leased to Kimberly Clark. The smaller, 340,000 square foot building is leased to Alliance Enterprises. Building Two, which is unleased, totals 494,000 square feet.
The property is also adjacent to Amazon, Ikea, and FedEx, and is minutes from Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Interstate 5 is also just over a mile away.
“The Cubes at DuPont benefits from a strategic location with quick access to Interstate-5, being less than 20 minutes from the Port of Tacoma, and within one hour of Seattle and two hours of Portland, Oregon,” states a leasing brochure obtained by The Registry.
CRG originally acquired the former Intel campus in 2018. It demolished the two former office buildings on the site and undertook a renovation of the smallest remaining building before adding its two new-builds. Construction was done on a speculative basis.
“Looking forward to 2021, we continue to be poised for significant growth when considering our highly pre-leased development pipeline, strong prospect list for new build-to-suit developments and the expected value creation from our land holdings, 78 percent of which is located in in-fill coastal markets,” said Connor.
