Three things in life are certain: Death, taxes and demand for logistics space in New York City’s outer boroughs.
Prologis, the industrial real estate giant nicknamed “Amazon’s landlord,” bought a controlling stake in an industrial site in Maspeth, Queens for $42.7 million, property records show. The site at 46-81 Metropolitan Avenuecan accommodate a property of just over 390,000 square feet, according to PropertyShark, though only about 15,000 square feet is currently built up.
The deal pencils out to about $109 per buildable square foot. The seller’s entities were tied to three individuals: James Juliano, Raymond Rudolph, and Alan Dern, records show. They bought the property for $23 million in 2016, according to PropertyShark.
Prologis, which took a 68 percent stake in the property, also signed a ground lease with two of the minority owners of the property that were not involved in the sale. The lease ends next year, but Prologis has an option to extend the lease for 44 years and 11 months.
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Demand for warehouse space in New York City has exploded since the pandemic as residents turned to e-commerce for more of their shopping needs. In Queens, about 1 million square feet of industrial space was under construction in the first quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Finding space for these last-mile distribution centers has proved challenging. Land is scarce and interest from institutional investors has driven up prices.
In some neighborhoods such as Brooklyn’s Red Hook, the industrial frenzy has received pushback from residents, who are not exactly keen to live next to a barrage of trucks and Amazon warehouses.
Prologis, led by CEO Hamid Moghadam, is among the largest industrial landlords in the country, with $154 billion assets under management. The pandemic was a windfall for the firm, which saw total revenues jump to $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021, up from $978 million in the first quarter of 2020. A number of Prologis’ warehouses are occupied by Amazon.
Last year, Prologis paid Frito-Lay $37.5 million for a Queens warehouse at 18-51 Flushing Avenue.
Prologis did not return a request for comment.