Industrial play: Alliance HP trades one West Palm complex for another

Clay Hamlin III is playing a game of Monopoly with Palm Beach County industrial real estate, replacing one property for another.

Affiliates of Hamlin’s Alliance HP bought the Skees Industrial park at 1426 Skees Road just south of West Palm Beach for $15.9 million — shortly after it sold a distribution center at 1100 25th Street in West Palm for $12.2 million, according to deed and state corporate records.

Alliance, based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, buys, develops, repositions, leases and manages real estate, with a focus on industrial and offices, its website says. Co-founded in 2009 by Richard Previdi, the firm also has a Fort Lauderdale office.

LBCW Investments, based out of the same Bryn Mawr headquarters as Alliance, is the Hamlin family’s business investment company. It is the largest capital partner of Alliance. Hamlin and Lynn Hamlin founded LBCW in 1984, according to its website.

The seller of the Skees complex, GC Skees Industrial, is led by Phyllis McHenry and Doral-based WestVest Associates brokerage founder Anthony DeRosa, records show. It had paid $4.45 million for the real estate in 2014.

Yonatan Missika of Gridline Properties represented both sides of the deal.

The 73,130-square-foot Skees complex, built in 1997 on 8.2 acres, consists of nine buildings with a minimum of 18-foot ceiling heights, according to the property’s website. Each unit has at least one grade-level overhead door with a storefront entrance, and the property includes outdoor storage. It is just west of Florida’s Turnpike.

The complex is fully occupied, according to Cornerstone Realty, which leases the property. Tenants include Rocket Cooling A/C Repair, Centurion Partners Group gun shop, Bigg Boy Auto & Marine and How 2 Operate Restoration water damage repair company.

Alliance secured a $12.4 million mortgage from an affiliate of New York-based alternative investor Cerberus Capital Management, records show.

The purchase is part of Alliance’s third $100 million warehouse fund targeting “infill” industrial properties, according to a Gridline news release.

Separately, Stamford, Connecticut-based Twenty Lake Holdings bought Allicance’s warehouse property at 1100 25th Street. Twenty Lake is a national real estate investor and manager led by President Joseph Miller, according to records and Miller’s LinkedIn.

The warehouse totals 76,500 square feet and was built in 1969 on 3.7 acres, property records show. It more than doubled in value in two years, as Hamlin’s entity paid $5.7 million for it in 2020.

Alliance has been trading Palm Beach County industrial properties for a few years. In August, it sold sites at 7233 Seacrest Boulevard and 7109 Seacrest Boulevard for $26 million to Home Depot. Alliance had paid $17 million for the real estate in February of last year. At least part of the property was previously a Sam’s Club.

Palm Beach’s industrial market remains strong, fueled by hefty demand, and supply that can’t keep up because of a lack of developable land.

The industrial vacancy rate dropped to 4.5 percent in the first quarter, from 7.4 percent during the same period of last year, according to a JLL report. The average asking rent rose to $10.66 a square foot, from $9.47 a square foot.

The Hamlins, through an affiliate tied to LBCW and its private equity subsidiary Acrewood, also bought a townhouse at Palazzo Villas at 221 Brazilian Avenue in Palm Beach for $17.8 million in March.