Bridge bets on Miami Gardens’ Palmetto Lakes Industrial Park

Already among the biggest South Florida industrial real estate players, Bridge Industrial further extended its empire with the purchase of a pair of Miami Gardens buildings.

Bridge, headed by Steve Poulos, bought the fully leased properties at 16175 Northwest 49th Avenue and 16250 Northwest 48th Avenue that sit on 6 acres at the Palmetto Lakes Industrial Park for $26.3 million, according to a company release. The seller is an affiliate of the Murad family’s home appliances company Kalorik.

This was partly a sale-leaseback deal as Kalorik now leases the 49th Avenue building where it’s been operating. Brian Trading, a family-owned textile distribution and export company, leases the 48th Avenue building.

Jose Sasson of Axiom Capital Advisors represented the buyer, and Robert Comunale of Industrial Group Realty represented the seller.

Bridge plans a multi-million dollar revamp of the 124,000 square feet of real estate and increase the number of parking stalls from 200 to 275. As such, the purchase is part of Bridge’s strategy to acquire properties that could use a facelift and increase rents following upgrades.

Also part of this value-add strategy was Bridge’s purchase of the three-building Pompano Beach Commerce Park on the southwest corner of North Powerline Road and Northwest 16th Street for $46.3 million in January.

Despite the recent acquisitions, Bridge is well-known as a ground-up developer. The Chicago-based firm has completed or is working on 10 million square feet of industrial real estate across South Florida, which is spearheaded by southeast regional partner Kevin Carroll.

So far this year, Bridge has embarked on at least four projects. It is building the 170,000-square-foot Bridge Point Port Everglades in Dania Beach on the site of the former Park ‘N Fly near Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Bridge also plans a 2.6 million-square-foot speculative logistics campus spanning 175 acres in Doral, and the 409,000-square-foot Bridge Point Gratigny just south of the Miami-Opa locka Executive Airport.

Also in Miami Gardens, Bridge is developing the second two-building phase of the Bridge Point Commerce Center, after completing the first three buildings.

Miami Gardens has caught other developers’ eyes, as Blackstone subsidiary Link Logistics plans an industrial complex and movie studios across 116 acres on Calder’s former horse racing track. Link Logistics paid $291 million for the site in June.