The Easton Group, in joint venture with industrial investor LBA Logistics, bought a Doral warehouse for $19.5 million.
Badia Spices, a homegrown spice and herbs maker and distributor, sold the 105,365-square-foot building at 9880 Northwest 25th Street, according to an Easton news release.
The deal breaks down to $185 per square foot.
Dalton Easton of Easton’s brokerage division, Easton & Associates, represented the joint venture buyer. Hani Jardack of Jardack Commercial Realty represented Badia.
Built in 1998, the warehouse has rooftop solar panels, 26-foot clear heights, 192 parking spots and 12,000 square feet of office space, according to the release. Property records show it sits on 5.4 acres.
Badia, started in 1967 by Cuban exile José Badía, moved its operations to a Sweetwater warehouse that it acquired in November for $44 million. That 313,000-square-foot building is at 2200 Northwest 112th Avenue in Dolphin Commerce Park.
Badia, which started in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood before expanding, also packages and sells marinades, sauces, teas, health items and other products, according to its website. José Badía’s son, Joseph “Pepe” Badía, now leads the company.
Headquartered in Doral, Easton Group is a family owned commercial real estate firm that includes a management division, Easton & Associates Management Company; a development arm, Easton Development Company; and its brokerage division, according to its website. Ed Easton, who founded the group in 1974, also is its chair and CEO.
Irvine, California-based LBA Logistics has an industrial portfolio of more than 65 million square feet across the U.S., including in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
This is the second Easton-LBA joint venture, as the two are building a 266,760-square-foot warehouse in Hialeah Gardens that is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2022, according to the release. The project scored a $24 million construction loan in May.
The duo’s bet on industrial real estate is not surprising, in light of the asset class thriving even amid the coronavirus pandemic. In Miami-Dade County, base rents increased 9.5 percent since the start of the pandemic, according to a second quarter Avison Young report. Leasing in the county during that quarter represented half of the total leasing in 2020.