Morgan Stanley buys Torrance warehouse for $103M

The search is over.

Bridge Development Partners found a buyer for a massive Torrance warehouse property nine months after what looked like a quick deal for the new building fell through.

The Chicago-based investor announced this week it sold the recently completed 512,500-square-foot Bridge Point South Bay at 20333 S. Normandie Avenue for $102.5 million. The buyer is Morgan Stanley’s Prime Property Fund, according to Real Capital Analytics. The fund invests in core assets around the country.

The deal figures out to around $201 per square foot, roughly what was expected when Bridge listed the warehouse in August while it was still under construction. The most recent deal makes it the third highest industrial sale in the country this year by that metric.

Cushman & Wakefield brokers Jeff Chaite, Jeffrey Cole, Ed Hernandez, and Mike Adey represented both sides in the deal.

Bridge purchased the 20.4-acre site in 2016 from a former tenant and redeveloped it, with 176 trailer parking spaces and 56 dock doors. The warehouse also includes a flexible 20,000-square-foot office space.

Bridge Development got a bite from Denver-based Industrial Property Trust about a week after listing it last summer. That sale fell through at some point. And it was unclear when Morgan Stanley stepped into the picture.

It’s no surprise that the property quickly attracted buyers and sold at a premium. It’s located in the heart of the South Bay submarket that includes El Segundo, Hawthorne, and other industrial hot spots. It’s situated near Interstate 405 and Interstate 110, about halfway between Los Angeles International Airport and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The area is nearly fully developed, according to Colliers International. It found that average asking rents of $0.82 per square foot in the first quarter of this year were the highest ever, and expected that to continue to rise. Vacancy rates in the first quarter of this year were around 1.5 percent.