After closing on its 60-acre development site in Pembroke Pines last week for $14.25 million, joint venture partners Core5 Industrial Partners and Helms Development are moving forward with their plans for a distribution center that could cost up to $125 million.
Atlanta-based Core5 and Florida-based Helms expect to break ground in early April on a 750,000-square-foot spec industrial project called the South Florida Distribution Center in Pembroke Pines, a project that would replace a former state women’s prison at 20421 Sheridan Street, developer Scott Helms told The Real Deal.
The three-building development will be broken up into phases, the first of which is a roughly 240,000-square-foot Class A building that will be completed by the end of the year. Helms said asbestos abatement is underway with a full demolition of the buildings planned for next week, and utility work and construction work planned for the next several weeks.
CBRE’s Larry Dinner, Larry Genet, and Tom O’Loughlin will handle leasing and Core5 is securing the financing. “We’re going after e-commerce and logistics companies,” Helms told TRD.
Once the project is built out, he said the value will be between $100 million and $125 million. Helms left IDI Gazeley in September and launched his company shortly afterwards. IDI had a purchase agreement with the city of Pembroke Pines for this site, but that was terminated last year.
Pembroke Pines, which sold the prison site to the Core5/Helms joint venture, stood to have a net gain of about $208,000, TRD previously reported.
The former Broward Correctional Institution is a stone’s throw from the Everglades, just off State Road 27, which Helms said is a major trucking route between Miami and Central Florida.
Demand for industrial land in Broward County is strong. Just east of the prison site is the 300-acre Bergeron Park of Commerce and Industry, which is roughly 60 percent built out. Tenants there can easily connect with all major highways in the area, including I-75, the Florida Turnpike, and I-595,