By Jack Stubbs
Boston-based TA Realty this week made a large-scale purchase in the Pierce County city of Lakewood. On Tuesday, December 18th, the company acquired the Lakewood-Tacoma Gateway Logistics Center for $65.6 million, or approximately $140 per square foot, according to Pierce County records. TA Realty, a real estate investment firm that operates across the U.S., acquired the property from Newport Beach, California-based Panattoni Development Company, an international real estate developer that specializes in industrial real estate development.
The buyer did not respond to calls for comment about the transaction in time for the publishing of this story. Panattoni, which did not respond to emailed requests for comment, purchased Lakewood Tacoma Gateway—a 21.83-acre industrial development site—in a joint venture with PCCP for $7.3 million in May 2017.
According to Panatonni Development’s web site, the Tacoma Gateway Building is a Class A industrial warehouse—completed in June 2018—that totals 467,526 square feet. Located at 14801 Spring St. SW, the asset is approximately seven miles south of downtown Lakewood and adjacent to Interstate-5.
It is not entirely clear how much space is currently available in the Lakewood-Tacoma property. According to Google Maps, the property is currently home to Ecolab Geodis, an e-commerce supply-chain logistics company.
Sitting at the corner of 150th St. SW and Spring St. SW, the property is roughly one mile from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord air base. The development is also roughly twelve miles south of Tacoma via Interstate-5 and twenty miles west of Sumner, a prominent distribution and logistics center in the Kent Valley.
Since the company’s founding in 1994, TA Realty has acquired, invested and managed $28.2 billion of real estate and acquired over 985 commercial and multifamily properties on behalf of U.S. and non-U.S. investors, according to the company’s web site.
Founded in 1986, Panattoni Development Company operates from 24 offices in the United States, Canada and Europe and has developed over 320 million square feet across these offices. One of the most active private industrial developers in the U.S., the company specializes in industrial, office and build-to-suit projects. Some of the company’s other projects in the Puget Sound region include the Des Moines Creek Business Park and the 104,750 square foot OSW Equipment BTS development in Maltby, Washington, a distribution facility that was completed in November 2018.
