AURORA – EastGroup Properties, a Mississippi-based real estate investment trust company, has acquired buildings 2, 4, 5 and 6 at the Airways Business Center, a Class A warehouse distribution center in Aurora. Together, the buildings offer 382,137 square feet of space and are currently 100 percent occupied by a mix of 11 tenants. The sale price was not disclosed.
Built in 2007 and 2008, Airways Business Center is located in Denver’s premier industrial corridor on North Airport Boulevard. The airport submarket has recorded 17 years of positive annual net absorption, driving rental rates near all-time highs.
“We’re excited to expand our Denver portfolio with the addition of Airways Business Center,” said Ryan Collins, senior vice president at EastGroup Properties. “This acquisition was a great opportunity to acquire a critical mass of high quality, multi-tenant buildings in Denver’s largest and top performing submarket.”
Doug Viseur, Todd Witty, Tyler Carner, Jeremy Ballenger, Jessica Ostermick and Jim Bolt of CBRE’s Denver office represented the seller of the properties, Principal Global Investors.
“The Airways buildings provide space sizes which match demand in the Northeast Denver market with options ranging from 14,000 to 100,000 square feet,” said Viseur, senior vice president. “This generated unprecedented interest from investors looking for leased buildings with this divisibility in addition to many other Class A building features.”
Metro Denver saw its 36th straight quarter of positive net absorption, posting 494,871 sq. ft. of net absorption in Q1 2019. The average asking lease rate increased $0.05 quarter-over-quarter to $8.21 per sq. ft. triple net (NNN). Direct vacancy increased 23 basis points (bps) to 6.0%, while availability increased 15 bps to 8.7%. Five projects delivered in Q1 2019, adding 678,159 sq. ft. of new space to the Denver industrial market. Construction activity remained strong with 3.7 million sq. ft. currently underway. Overall sales volume of $351.8 million was recorded in Q1 2019 with investment sales accounting for 84.2% or $296.4 million of the total overall volume.
“We received incredible interest for this Class A asset given its excellent location and access, high-quality features and tenant mix. Denver continues to be a sought-after market for industrial investment with strong market fundamentals and economic growth attracting investors,” said Ballenger, senior vice president.
