Duke Realty makes industrial buy in City of industry

Firm pays $51M for 200K sf warehouse in leaseback deal

Senior Vice President of Duke Realty, Nancy Shultz. (Google Maps, Duke Realty)
Senior Vice President of Duke Realty, Nancy Shultz. (Google Maps, Duke Realty)

Demand for industrial properties remains strong, and in the latest deal Duke Realty paid $51.3 million for a warehouse in the City of Industry.

The Indianapolis-based firm closed the leaseback deal with Troy CSL Lighting Inc. for the property at 14500-14508 Nelson Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. Troy’s lease is for five years.

Leasebacks, which allow the owner-occupant to raise capital and stay in the property, are increasingly common in L.A.’s industrial sector, where properties now command a premium.

The local industrial market was already the tightest in the country before the pandemic hit, and stayed the way throughout 2020, thanks in part because the increased demand for logistics spaces to satisfy e-commerce orders.

The Nelson Avenue property is 202,500 square feet, with 32 loading docks.

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Duke is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that specializes in industrial properties. The firm generated around $993 million in revenue last year, according to Yahoo! Finance.

The deal in City of Industry brings Duke’s L.A.-area holdings to seven properties. The firm now has 16 million square feet of “in-service or under-construction space in Southern California,” the company told the Business Journal. The firm’s portfolio is concentrated in the eastern U.S.

In September 2018, Duke paid $62.5 million for a 25.5-acre development site in Irwindale. It is building a 529,000-square-foot logistics facility there.

[LABJ] — Dennis Lynch