Blackstone’s Link Logistics drops $162M for Deerfield Beach industrial campus

Blackstone’s Link Logistics subsidiary dropped $162 million for an industrial campus in Deerfield Beach. 

New York-based Link bought the properties at 710-750 South Powerline Road and 3155-3161 Southwest 10th Street within the Quiet Waters Business Park from an affiliate of PGIM Real Estate, according to records and real estate database Vizzda.

Link made the purchase in two deals. It paid $147 million for the five buildings along South Powerline Road, and paid $15 million for the pair of buildings on Southwest 10th Street, immediately to the south of the Powerline Road properties. 

Completed in 2004, the industrial-flex buildings span roughly 675,000, combined, on nearly 46 acres, according to Vizzda. Records indicate that Newark, New Jersey-based PGIM Real Estate developed the portfolio, as the firm’s affiliate took out notices of construction commencement for the buildings in 2003. 

Led by Stephen Schwarzman, publicly traded Blackstone reported a nearly 40 percent drop in distributable earnings, or cash used to pay shareholders’ dividends, during the second quarter. Yet, the firm also reported robust rent growth across its industrial real estate. 

In 2019, Blackstone founded Link Logistics, following a $7.6 billion acquisition of industrial real estate investment trust Gramercy Property Trust. 

Led by Luke Petherbridge, Link focuses on logistics real estate, with a portfolio consisting of more than 3,500 properties, according to its website. The firm has hefty investments in South Florida. It paid $291 million last summer for the former horse racing track and surrounding properties at Calder in Miami Gardens. Link wants to build a 2.3 million-square-foot warehouse and distribution center, as well as radio, TV and movie studios and music production facilities. 

In June, Link bought a Whole Foods Market distribution center at 2700 Northwest Street in Pompano Beach for $28.6 million. That came on the heels of a $15.5 million purchase of a boat and truck yard with a warehouse at 7320 Northwest 61st Street in an unincorporated area of north Miami-Dade County. 

South Florida’s industrial market has shown signs of some softening amid high interest rates. Expensive financing has slowed investment sales, and it generally also has hindered companies’ ability to borrow money, likely pausing some industrial tenants’ lease plans. 

In the tri-county region, the industrial vacancy rate remained flat at 2.4 percent in the second quarter, year-over-year, but crept up from last quarter’s 2.2 percent, according to a Lee & Associates report. 

Among the few recent deals, Walton Street Capital paid $51.5 million in June for three warehouses at 3455 Northwest 54th Street, 5530 Northwest 32nd Court and 5400 Northwest 32nd Court in Miami-Dade’s Brownsville neighborhood.