By Meghan Hall
Investor appetite for Puget Sound industrial product has continued to hold into the end of the year. In a transaction that closed just last week, Portland-based Harsch Investment Properties closed on a deal that will expand its Seattle portfolio. The firm paid $14.7 million for several parcels in Auburn, Wash., buying the assets from several limited liability companies affiliated with Danette Selk, Troy Thomas, Robert West and Walter De Maree.
The assets are located at 1 and 61 30th St. and 3040 B St. NW. The parcels are adjacent to one another, and combined account for just about six acres. The properties are all developed with single-story masonry structures built in the 1980s and 1990s. The buildings, according to King County parcel data, are currently used as warehouse space.
The properties are not far from Auburn’s commercial center and are just off of State Route 167. The Auburn Municipal Airport is within minutes of the property, and several major shopping centers anchored by Lowe’s Fred Meyer and a Dollar Tree are just several minutes’ south. Nearby tenants include Geaux Brewing, Auburn VW, Ferguson Plumbing Supply and FedEx Ground.
To date, Harsch currently owns more than 650,000 square feet of multi-tenant properties close-into Seattle alone. When accounting for investment into Bellevue, Kent Valley and Pierce County, Harsch now owns and services more than two million square feet of space across the region, according to its website. Other properties listed on Harsch’s website include the 196th Commerce Center, a 113,360 square foot asset in Kent, Kenyon Business Park, a 126,401 square foot property in Seattle, and the West Park Corporate Campus, a 273,286 square foot property in Auburn.
At the end of the third quarter, the Auburn submarket had more than 27.2 million square feet of rentable industrial product and a vacancy rate of 5.2 percent. The submarket currently has 206,155 square feet of space under construction. Rents in close-in markets are hovering around $1.20 per square foot triple net, based on a recent report from brokerage firm CBRE. According to CBRE, investors will continue to take note of industrial real estate, driven by a desire to tap into e-commerce activity that has exploded in recent months as a result of the pandemic.
