LBA Logistics Sells 7-Asset Portfolio

November 7, 2025

The deal includes cold storage space in Chicago.

LBA Logistics has sold a seven-property industrial portfolio spanning various parts of the country to two separate buyers for an unspecified price. MDH Partners acquired a six-asset Sun Belt portfolio, while Venture One bought a Chicago-area cold storage facility.

780 Hartman Road SW in Austell, Ga., one of the assets that MDH Partners acquired from LBA Logistics. *Image courtesy JLL Capital Markets*

MDH Partners’ share of the acquisition totals nearly 1.5 million square feet in Jacksonville and Broward County in Florida; Columbus and Cincinnati in Ohio; and Atlanta and Louisville. The six-building portfolio is fully leased to tenants in the pharmaceutical, aerospace, food and beverage and household products sectors. The six assets average 245,930 square feet each, with 33-foot clear heights.

Venture One acquired a single asset, but a specialized one: a 77,838-square-foot cold storage facility at 601 Wall St. in Glendale Heights, Ill. The facility features about 38,000 square feet of freezer space and is a distribution hub for KeHE Distributors.

The property represents rare infill cold storage capacity within the Chicago metro area’s constrained North DuPage submarket, according to JLL, a notable example for the region’s refrigerated warehousing market conditions. John Huguenard and Trent Agnew, JLL Capital Markets senior managing directors and industrial platform co-leads, led the team that represented LBA Logistics in the transactions.

The dispositions come on the heels of another sale in October by Irving, Calif.-based LBA Logistics. In that deal, Matthews acquired a nearly 2 million-square-foot, two-building, former Sears distribution center in Dallas.

LBA Logistics, the industrial arm of LBA Realty, operates a portfolio of over 400 industrial properties totaling about 106 million square feet. Atlanta-based MDH Partners targets U.S. industrial real estate on behalf of its institutional investors, so far leading or participating in over $7 billion (92 million square feet) of deals.

Industrial market perks up

Overall, the U.S. industrial market, though operating in the face of economic and trade headwinds, turned in a decent third quarter, with leasing volume totaling 146.2 million square feet, representing the best quarter by that metric since the first quarter of 2024, according to JLL.

Absorption of industrial space doubled nationwide from the previous quarter, settling at 38.2 million square feet and bringing the year-to-date total to 101 million square feet of positive absorption. The national industrial vacancy rate edged up to 7.6 percent in the third quarter, but JLL posits that the rate has peaked for now, as new construction deliveries continue to slow.

In the cold storage subsector, the demand outlook is strong, MetLife Investment Management reported.

Food companies, for instance, are busy consolidating inventories into more efficient and larger cold storage facilities, to improve logistics. The demand for cold storage as a place to put medicines is also growing, as an aging population uses more medicine.