By Jack Stubbs
Sitting in the heart of the Kent Valley, Sumner has long been regarded as one of the Puget Sound region’s hubs of industrial activity, and the recent sale of an industrial property indicates that demand in the city, roughly thirty miles south of Seattle, continues.
On Friday, February 1st, Indianapolis-based Duke Realty spent $36.1 million, or approximately $158 per square foot, to acquire an industrial/warehouse building located along the East Valley highway, Pierce County records show. Duke Realty purchased the property from Exeter Property Group, an industrial real estate investment company based in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.
The subject property, located at 4800 E Valley Highway East, is a 228,256 square foot industrial/warehouse building constructed in 2004, according to the property listing on loopnet.com. According to the listing, there is no space currently available at the property, and Google Maps does not show any tenants occupying the building.
The warehouse os approximately 1.5 miles from the Sumner Station Commuter Rail and roughly 6 miles from the Puyallup Station Commuter Rail, and is also just over twenty miles south of Sea-Tac Airport.
Duke Realty is one of the country’s leading industrial REITS and looks to offer e-commerce and supply-chain companies a crucial edge, according to the company’s web site. The company owns and builds facilities up to 1.2 million square feet in key distribution locations across the country.
Duke Realty’s capture of the warehouse building in Sumner comes a couple of months after the company made a large-scale in Des Moines, Washington. In mid-December 2018, the company acquired two properties in the Des Moines Business Park totaling 546,000 square feet for $111 million from Panattoni Development Company.
Exeter Property Group is among the largest real estate investment managers and focuses on acquiring, developing and managing big-box warehouse, last-mile logistics and urban multifamily properties across North America and Europe, according to the company’s web site. Exeter acquires properties typically ranging from $10 to $50 million for single-asset and small portfolio transactions, up to $500 million portfolio transactions.
The recent sale of the warehouse property located along Valley Highway East comes several weeks after another industrial property changed hands. In late December, Sumner Distribution Center ILP LLC, an entity affiliated with Bentall Kennedy’s office based in San Francisco, acquired a 282,899 square foot warehouse/distribution center—located at 3101 W. Valley Hwy. E.—or for $41.05 million, or approximately $156 per square foot, from Auburn-based Island Kidz LLC.
