Exeter takes out big loan after latest Chicago-area industrial pickup

The Pennsylvania company secured $150 million in financing after acquiring a Burr Ridge industrial property

124 Tower Drive (Credit: Google Maps)
124 Tower Drive (Credit: Google Maps)

Three months after picking up its latest Chicago-area industrial property, Exeter Property Group has taken out a $150 million loan tied to the Burr Ridge warehouse.

The Pennsylvania-based investment group in January picked up the property at 124 Tower Drive in west suburban Burr Ridge for $3.3 million, Cook County property records show. In mid-March, the firm took out a $150 million loan tied to the property, according to property records.

Exeter is planning to modernize the warehouse facility and its offices, but the firm’s CEO, Ward Fitzgerald, wouldn’t say what the proceeds of the loan would be used for, or if it’s secured by more of Exeter’s sizable Chicago portfolio.

“We’re continuing to grow our presence” in Chicago, Fitzgerald said. “We enjoy a large portfolio in Chicago that we want to grow within the next decade.”

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The building at 124 Tower Drive is leased by Production Plus, an events production company. It is just off Interstate 55 and Interstate 294. Fitzgerald said Exeter bought the property for its good location in a healthy industrial market.

Exeter greatly expanded its local portfolio in 2012, when it plunked down $100 million for about 30 properties, Crain’s reported at the time. Exeter has about 15 millions square feet of industrial space in the Chicago market, Fitzgerald said.

Chicago’s industrial market remains one of the hottest in the country. Leasing in the sector hit a three-year high in the third quarter of 2018, and vacancies dropped to a 17-year-low last year.