The former Duke Realty acquisitions team found a Chicago-based landing spot after the industrial real estate firm’s massive buyout by San Francisco-based Prologis, the world’s largest industrial landlord.
The three-member acquisitions group of Mark Crawford, Joe Hawkins and Isaac Lau was hired by development firm CRG after Prologis’ all-stock purchase of Duke, valued at $23 billion, CoStar News reported. CRG is the development arm of Clayco, and Duke’s sale was completed this week.
The hires were made as CRG plans to grow by picking up existing logistics properties, with the expectation they identify deals to put about $2 billion into buying buildings over the next two to three years, said CRG President Shawn Clark. He’s bullish on the sector due to a convergence of factors, including rising interest and land costs at the same time as growing rents.
“There is a unique opportunity to acquire properties at a lower basis point than we could have in the near past and still capture the rent growth that’s in the market,” Clark told the outlet.
During 16 years at Duke, Crawford led the largest portfolio acquisition in the firm’s history, overseeing the $515 million deal for Chicago’s Bridge Development Partners — now Bridge Industrial. That entity had owned properties in north New Jersey, south Florida and southern California.
Hawkins joined Duke’s acquisition team in 2011, and played a role in 150 purchases and developments that increased the firm’s West Coast portfolio more than sixfold to 30 million square feet.
Lau, who was hired by Duke last year, will be based in CRG’s Los Angeles office, while Crawford and Hawkins will split their time between the new Indianapolis office and the headquarters in Chicago.
CRG put more than $1 billion annually into industrial developments in recent years.
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