Sterling Logistics Fund Acquires Former Bay Area Walmart Store
Plans call for the property’s redevelopment into warehouse space.
Sterling Logistics Properties has purchased a 127,380-square-foot former Walmart store at 40580 Albrae St. in Fremont, Calif., for $32.6 million. The acquisition was made on behalf of Sterling Consumer Logistics Properties I LP, a $225 million equity fund.
The fund reportedly focuses on acquiring vacant, freestanding retail buildings with the goal of redeveloping them as neighborhood fulfillment centers.
In a company statement, Joe Dykstra, president of Sterling Logistics Properties, said Fremont’s industrial sector continues to experience robust demand and high occupancy levels. He also called the 8.7-acre property an ideal one to redevelop into warehouse space, for either advanced manufacturing or logistics tenants.
This was the fund’s ninth acquisition. Previously acquired properties have been in New York; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Seattle; Chicago; Phoenix; and Silicon Valley.
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A Sterling spokesperson did not respond to Commercial Property Executive’s request for additional information.
In late April, citing a Walmart announcement, local TV station KRON reported that the Walmart store would be closing late the following month. The reason given by the retail chain was the store’s poor financial performance.
Fremont is the Bay Area’s fourth-largest city and home to multiple technology and advanced manufacturing companies, such as Meta, Apple, Google, Tesla, Quanta, MiTAC Information Systems and Bloom Energy. The property is conveniently accessible to I-680 and I-880.
Sterling Logistics Properties is a subsidiary of Sterling Organization, a vertically integrated private equity real estate investment firm.
East Bay industrial is a mixed bag
The East Bay’s industrial market is seeing negative net absorption, in part because of a preponderance of renewals among the strong recent leasing activity, according to a second-quarter report from JLL. Average asking rents are stable amid rising tenant demand, but tenant concessions are up. Total industrial availability in the East Bay is 10.2 percent, also according to JLL.
Last September, Sterling Organization purchased for $180.5 million a 994,000-square-foot portfolio of three open-air shopping centers. SITE Centers was the seller of the retail assets in the Atlanta, San Antonio and Washington, D.C., metro areas.
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