EQT Exeter spends $197M to buy Fontana warehouse from Manulife

EQT Exeter has bought a warehouse in the Inland Empire city of Fontana for $197 million. 

Manulife Investment Management sold the 819,000-square-foot industrial property, according to an announcement from JLL, which brokered the deal, on Tuesday. The deal came out to $240 a square foot. 

Located at 13423 Santa Ana Avenue, the distribution center includes 30-foot clear heights. 

Manulife acquired the property in 2017 when it bought John Hancock Life Insurance Company, which built the warehouse in 2000, according to property records filed with San Bernardino County. 

In the second quarter of 2022, Weber Distribution renewed a lease for 335,000 square feet at the property, according to a report from Lee & Associates. 

HSN, also known as the Home Shopping Network, lists the property as an address for a distribution center, though lease information has not been publicly disclosed in records. HSN is owned by the Qurate Retail Group. 

Though industrial leasing has slowed down from a peak in 2021 — when vacancy rates across the Inland Empire dipped below 1 percent — investors are still pouring cash into the asset class. 

Last month, Rexford Industrial Realty bought 3 million square feet of industrial space — totaling 48 properties — in Southern California from Blackstone in a whopping $1 billion deal, adding almost 7 percent of square footage to its portfolio. 

That deal came out to around $332 a square foot on average. 

Also last month, Hillwood Investment Properties and CBRE Investment Management borrowed $756 million to build 6.6 million square feet of warehouses on the former NASCAR racetrack in Fontana.