Cary Goldman quintuples O’Hare truck yard value on sale to Penske

Cary Goldman veered away from the traditional industrial real estate market of developing, leasing and selling warehouses five years ago into a niche that doesn’t involve buildings at all. It’s paying off: He quintupled the value of a mostly undeveloped property in five years.

That was the margin that Goldman’s Chicago-based Timber Hill Group made on the $15.4 million sale this month of the six-acre property at 2050 North Mannheim Road, near O’Hare International Airport, public records show. Penske, the trucking company started by Roger Penske, bought it after Timber Hill paid $3.2 million for it in 2017.

The big gain underscores strong demand for a dwindling supply for outdoor vehicle storage that can host semis, tractors and construction equipment. Many of the modern warehouses developed during the recent industrial boom don’t have room for such vehicles, Goldman said in an interview.

“Whoever is building the big boxes, they aren’t accommodating the amount of truck parking that’s required on site for those buildings,” Goldman said. “Instead of competing with them or renovating 200,000 square foot buildings as I used to do, we started to buy industrial outdoor storage.”

Penske’s side of the deal also marks a shift in the market. Penske usually leases spaces for trucks, and is now betting that rents will keep rising across the industrial market. Penske didn’t return a request for comment.

“With the recent entrance of institutional investors into the industrial sector, Penske has now recognized this new trend that the supply and demand of these sites is not in their favor,” Goldman said.

A November JLL report called truck-managed parking a “formerly niche” asset class that is “rapidly institutionalizing.” Prices are accelerating thanks to the growth of “e-commerce, leasing velocity and investor interest,” the brokerage’s report said.

Goldman’s Timber Hill last year launched a $150 million fund to invest in logistics-related supply-chain properties. The firm has made deals for the truck-managed parking sites in markets in and near Miami, Dallas and Jacksonville in addition to Chicago.

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