Freight transportation company XPO Logistics sold a suburban industrial building in Des Plaines in a $50 million sale-leaseback deal with Realterm Logistics.
Realterm, a real estate firm that focuses on logistics for the transportation industry, bought the 113,243-square-foot property at 401 West Touhy Avenue and leased it to XPO for 15 years, according to Cook County property records.
E-commerce companies scrambling for Chicago warehouses pushed up rents 17 percent to an all-time high of $5.90 per square foot in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. Firms signed leases for about 50.3 million square feet of industrial space.
Build-to-suit developments were popular last year as competition for big box warehouses grew. Amazon opened two five-story fulfillment centers in suburban Markham and Matteson totalling about 7.2 million square feet. About 28.5 million square feet was in the pipeline in the final quarter of last year, the most in 25 years.
Realterm has been picking up industrial properties in the city and suburbs. Last year it bought a 162,000-square-foot build-to-suit facility in suburban Palatine, 30 miles from the city. In Fulton Market, Realterm owns a 32,613-square-foot storage building, which it bought for $14.8 million two years ago. The company’s website shows it’s looking for a tenant.
Realterm manages more than $4 billion of industrial and logistics real estate in North America, Europe and India, according to the company’s website. Most recently, the company bought a fully leased 51,392-square-foot industrial facility in Miami for $15 million.