Longpoint in priciest deal of year for industrial

Longpoint Realty Partners has struck the most expensive industrial deal of the year, paying $80 million for a four-building complex in Van Nuys.

The Boston-based investment firm spent $80 million for the properties at 16161 Raymer Street totaling 85,000 square feet plus about four acres of surrounding land, public property records show. Adele Poliquin, a Westlake Village-based investor, sold the property.

Longpoint scored a $52 million, three-year loan from Prime Finance in connection with its purchase, according to JLL, which brokered the deal on behalf of Longpoint.

In total, the complex spans almost 12 acres, meaning the deal comes out to around $6.8 million per acre.

That’s almost double a recent deal in Long Beach, where Blackstone spent $3.6 million per acre to buy a 14-acre site for redevelopment. It’s about two-and-a-half-times what Rexford paid per acre for an 80-acre industrial storage site in the South Bay that it doesn’t plan to redevelop.

Longpoint is planning to redevelop the complex, which includes four small buildings put up in the 1960s and 1970s along with land used for truck and trailer storage, meaning the firm will have to spend millions more on renovations.

The purchase signals Longpoint’s continued optimism for the industrial market — it’s betting that demand for new industrial properties will stay high and rents will stay higher.

Around 0.6 percent of industrial space in the greater San Fernando Valley––which counts Van Nuys as a central district––was vacant in the first quarter of this year, according to JLL. The average monthly asking rent for warehouses was around $1.43 per square foot last quarter, a 25 percent jump compared to the first quarter of 2021, according to Lee & Associates.

In November, Longpoint closed a $669 million fund to invest in industrial and neighborhood retail properties, aiming to take advantage of both asset classes that have fared well during the pandemic.