Fred Keller trust sells Palm Beach industrial portfolio to Silverman Group for $50M

Map of properties. Inset: Cushman & Wakefield's Scott O'Donnell and Greg Miller
Map of properties. Inset: Cushman & Wakefield's Scott O'Donnell and Greg Miller

The estate of Fred Keller sold a portfolio of industrial properties in northern Palm Beach County to affiliates of Iselin, New Jersey-based Silverman Group for $50 million.

A trust in Keller’s name sold the 38 buildings, public records show. Keller was a millionaire Palm Beach real estate tycoon who died in prison while serving a life sentence for killing his fifth wife, according to the Palm Beach Post. 

The nearly 916,000-square-foot portfolio, spread across 16 sites and nearly 54 acres in West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach, Magnonia Park and Lake Park, breaks down to $55 per square foot, Cushman & Wakefield announced on Wednesday.

The properties were developed between 1971 and 2003. The warehouses are fully leased to 218 tenants averaging 4,200 square feet.

Cushman’s Scott O’Donnell, executive director; senior associate Greg Miller; director Dominic Montazemi and executive director Mike Davis represented the buyer. The brokerage’s capital markets team co-marketed the portfolio with CBRE Executive Vice President Robert Smith. Miguel Alcivar and debt financing partner Jason Hochman, both of Cushman, also worked on the deal, according to a release.

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Overall vacancy rates in Palm Beach County stand at 3.8 percent and at 3.3 percent in the warehouse and distribution sector, the brokerage said in the release. Vacancies hit a nine-year low earlier this year, pushing rents upward of $7.78 per square foot, triple net in the county’s industrial market. O’Donnell cited increasing land values and construction costs as limiting supply.

In June, a self storage real estate investment trust paid more than $180 million for a portfolio of 10 properties in South Florida and one in Baltimore, Maryland. Earlier this year, Easton Group sold the majority interest of its industrial portfolio in Miami-Dade and Broward counties for $98 million, a deal that broke down to nearly 54 acres, $145 per square foot and 675,000 square feet of industrial space in seven buildings. – Katherine Kallergis

Here’s a breakdown of Silverman’s purchase:

Industrial properties