Manufacturer flips Riverside warehouse to Prologis at $55M markup

Prologis has bought a Riverside warehouse sitting on 30 acres for about three times what it sold for five years ago, The Real Deal has learned.

The logistics-focused REIT bought a 303,100-square-foot industrial building at 6975 Sycamore Canyon Boulevard for $83.5 million, or around $275 per square foot, according to property records filed with Riverside County.

MAT Holdings, a manufacturer based in Illinois, sold the property it acquired for $28.2 million — around $93 per square foot — in 2017. The firm bought the property from Newport Beach-based Investment Building Group shortly after the latter finished construction, and has used it as a West Coast distribution center.

It’s unclear whether MAT Holdings has leased the space back and will continue to operate out of the building. Neither the firm nor Prologis responded to requests for comment.

A number of warehouse and logistics operators in Southern California have cashed out of their properties over the last year, taking advantage of soaring industrial land prices and demand from industrial real estate investors and developers.

Prologis’ buy isn’t an anomaly. In Los Angeles, according to Kidder Mathews, industrial properties have been trading at an average of more than $250 per square foot — a 177 percent increase from the average price of $90 per square foot in 2011.

The purchase also comes a month after Prologis itself took advantage of soaring industrial prices, selling a 1.2 million-square-foot cold storage facility in Riverside for $225 million — or around $187.50 per square foot.