Ares Acquires 1 MSF Houston Portfolio

An Ares Real Estate fund has acquired a logistics portfolio in Houston’s North and Northwest submarkets, totaling more than 1 million square feet. JLL Capital Markets brokered the deal on behalf of the seller.

Link Logistics previously owned the assets, according to Yardi Matrix data. The deal involves six facilities across three properties that were 95 percent leased to 10 tenants at the time of sale.

Marq Logistics, Ares’ vertically integrated global logistics real estate platform, will manage the portfolio. The firm launched the platform earlier this month, after the acquisition of GLP Capital Partners.

The buildings have diverse configurations, including cross-dock and rear-load, along with inverted front-load capabilities. The warehouses have clear heights ranging from 26 to 36 feet. The properties are:

• the 516,134-square-foot, four-building Central Green Corporate Center, part of a master-planned business park near George Bush Intercontinental Airport

• the 153,188-square-foot West Little York, a distribution center some 14 miles from downtown Houston

• the 351,400-square-foot North Houston Logistics Center Building G

Link Logistics had acquired the first two assets from IDI Logistics in June 2023 in a portfolio sale, Yardi Matrix shows.

JLL Capital Markets Senior Managing Director Trent Agnew, Managing Director Charlie Strauss, Director Lance Young, Senior Analyst Brooke Petzold and Analyst Dawson Hastings were part of the team that represented the seller.

Ares Management Corp. had more than $595 billion of assets under management globally as of September. Earlier this quarter, the firm’s Alternative Credit Funds subsidiary partnered with Makarora Management to purchase Plymouth Industrial REIT in an all-cash deal valued at $2.1 billion. The transaction is set to close early next year.

Houston industrial prices still below national figures

Houston’s industrial investment volume stood at $2.2 billion year-to-date through October, according to a recent Yardi Matrix industrial report. Assets in the metro traded for $95 per square foot on average, considerably below the $136 U.S. figure, a pricing gap that points to the broader industrial market trends across high-supply Sun Belt metros.

In September, a joint venture between Brennan Investment Group and PCCP bought a 16-building industrial portfolio spanning 1.3 million square feet. Innovex sold the Northwest Houston collection.

Other notable deals include STAG Industrial’s purchase of a 462,250-square-foot logistics facility in Humble, Texas. The building came online last year and is part of a two-warehouse campus.