JV developing Hialeah spec cold storage facility lands $67M construction loan

A joint venture developing a speculative cold storage project in Hialeah scored a $67 million construction loan.

The joint venture between industrial developer Bridge Development Partners and PGIM Real Estate, the real estate investment and financing business of Prudential Financial, plans to break ground on the project later this month, according to a press release.

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. provided the loan, which was arranged by Steve Roth of CBRE.

The 312,000-square-foot facility will be built on 20.8 acres near the intersection of Northwest 162nd Street and Northwest 102nd Avenue. The joint venture bought the property in July for $11 million and expects to complete the project in the fourth quarter of 2021.

PGIM Real Estate is led by CEO Eric Adler. Bridge Development is led by founder, CEO and partner Steve Poulos.

Recent deals in the cold storage sector of South Florida’s industrial real estate market include Arkadia Property Group paying $5.3 million for a cold storage warehouse in Allapattah last month, and Ivy Realty paying $30.5 million for a cold storage facility leased to Southeast Frozen Foods and SuperValu in March.

The cold storage market appears to be seeing a surge of investor interest nationwide. Lineage Logistics, the world’s largest landlord of temperature-controlled storage, pulled in $1.6 billion in a fundraising round that ended last month, and Americold Realty Trust, the only public real estate investment trust specializing in cold storage, saw a 6 percent increase in net operating income in the second quarter.