Two Sigma Pays $52M for Industrial Park Near Phoenix

Two Sigma has snapped up a 269,000-square foot industrial campus outside Phoenix for $51.6 million.

The New York-based investor bought the 202 Business Park at 560-620 East Germann Road, in Gilbert, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. The seller was Germann Road Land Development, an affiliate of American National Insurance, based in Galveston, Texas.

The deal works out to $192 per square foot. The price paid for the 11-building campus was the highest in the region this year, according to Vizzda.

The 202 Business Park, built in 2008, sits on 27 acres south of Loop 202 and east of Chandler Municipal Airport in the Southeast Valley.

Two Sigma financed the purchase through Rialto Capital Management, after plunking down $15.4 million cash as a down payment, according to Maricopa County property records.

The industrial campus includes such tenants as ENMAR Hardwood Flooring, El Sol Foods and Heliae, a biotech firm that’s held a lease for 15,000 square feet since 2010, according to the Business Journal. The property’s occupancy rate was not disclosed.

Greer Oliver and Connor Nebeker-Hay of JLL Capital Markets represented the buyer and the seller in the deal.

Broker Steve Sayre of JLL is marketing 15,800 square feet of open space at the industrial campus for an undisclosed price.

Other major industrial sales this year include the purchase by San Mateo, Calif.-based G.W. Williams of the 228,600-square-foot Koll Cotton Center at 4050 East Cotton Center Boulevard in Phoenix for $38 million, or $166 per square foot, according to the Business Journal

New York-based Blackstone bought a 329,100-square-foot warehouse at 2300 South 51st Avenue in Phoenix for $42 million, or $128 per square foot.

And Denmark-based DSV Air and Sea picked up 87 acres in southeast Mesa near Ellsworth and Pecos roads for $46 million, or $528,736 an acre, to build a 1.7 million-square-foot warehouse and regional headquarters.

Industrial construction across Greater Phoenix slowed last year, leading to a drop in industrial building sales, according to the Business Journal.

The largest industrial deal last year was by San Francisco-based Prologis, which in October bought the new Airpark Logistics Center in Goodyear for $184 million — the largest multi-building industrial park sale in Arizona history. The price for the 170-acre, 1.4 million-square-foot campus near Goodyear Airport works out to $131 per square foot.

Two Sigma, a data-centric hedge fund, was founded in 2001 by D.E. Shaw veterans with backgrounds in computer science and mathematics. The firm has $60 billion in assets under management, according to its website.

The firm hit headwinds last fall after an unauthorized researcher engaged in $620 million of unauthorized trades, leading to unexpected gains and losses, according to the Wall Street Journal. Earlier in the year, the Securities and Exchange Commission scrutinized the firm after it disclosed it was unable to make basic management decisions, with a toxic rift between billionaire founders John Overdeck and David Siegel.

— Dana Bartholomew