Clear Height Properties pays Rothbart $34M for industrial portfolio

Dominic Sergi’s Clear Height Properties poured more than $34 million into the Chicago area’s tight industrial market this month, picking up a slate of properties in the north and northwest suburbs.

The Oak Brook-based firm bought multiple buildings totaling 190,000 square feet of industrial and warehouse space at the North Shore Business Centre in Waukegan, from Gary and Michael Rothbart’s Rothbart Construction Realty, a firm based in Northbrook. The deal includes property at 895 Northpoint Boulevard valued at $4.2 million; 940-972 Northpoint for $4.2 million; 1000-1036 Northpoint for $5 million; and 953-977 Northpoint for $6.2 million, according to public records. The buildings total more than 191,000 square feet.

Clear Height also bought properties in Elgin at 1380 Gateway Drive for $5.6 million and at 1390 Gateway for $4.9 million, both of which are 52,000 square feet, as well as the 40,400-square-foot distribution center at 2460-2650 Corporate Parkway in Algonquin for $4.3 million, all from Rothbart, public records show.

The deal is the latest in a string of large industrial trades in the Chicago-area to close as of late, indicating buyers and sellers have started overcoming hiccups on pricing that took hold of the market — even amid record-high demand in the asset class — due to interest rates rising in response to Federal Reserve policy aimed at reducing inflation.

Among them was California-based Pacifica Real Estate’s purchase of an 80,000-square-foot last-mile warehouse and distribution facility in a western suburb, Maywood, for $18 million. Also in Elgin, Texas-based Sarofim paid $55 million for two warehouses totaling 550,000 square feet. On Chicago’s South Side, TradeLane Properties, based in suburban Oak Brook, bought an industrial asset on South Morgan Street for $13.5 million. Industrial players also finalized 131 new leases and lease expansions totaling 11 million square feet from July to September.

And in a deal that closed last month among the priciest Chicago-area industrial trades this year, Boston-based TA Realty dropped $70 million on a 21-building portfolio in Elk Grove Village near O’Hare International Airport that’s 97 percent leased.

Clear Height and Rothbart didn’t return requests for comment.

Clear Height owns more than 40 properties totaling 3 million square feet, according to the firm’s website. The group sold a seven-parcel Chicago-area industrial portfolio totaling 450,000 square feet to J&L Real Properties in the spring.

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