Clarion Partners pays $33M for Tropical Shipping’s Medley facility

Clarion Partners just paid $32.6 million for Tropical Shipping’s Medley facility as South Florida’s industrial prices continue to rise.

Tropical Shipping sold the nearly 21-acre site at 9505 Northwest 108th Avenue for about $180 per square foot. Clarion Partners’ Lit Industrial Limited Partnership bought the 182,000-square-foot warehouse, which was built in 2000.

Property records show Tropical Shipping paid $3.58 million for the property in 1999. Tropical Shipping, based in Riviera Beach, Florida, is a Caribbean cargo and freight shipper with more than 1,000 employees.

South Florida’s industrial market is one of the area’s best performing assets classes due to land scarcity and growing demand for e-commerce. Institutional investors have been the main buyers of industrial properties, acquiring nearly $340 million of industrial assets in South Florida as of October 2018, representing 23 percent of total buyers, according to Colliers International South Florida.

Clarion Partners is a New York-based real estate firm that manages more than $47 billion worth of assets, according to its website. In 2015, the company partnered to purchase the Palm Beach Outlets shopping center for $278 million. A year later, Clarion paid $109 million for the ground leases of a major mixed-use building on Lincoln Road.