MetLife Sells SoCal Industrial Properties for $166M

MetLife Investment Management has sold the Golden Coast Portfolio, a collection of three industrial properties totaling nearly 600,000 square feet in Southern California. Three separate buyers purchased the assets. Cushman & Wakefield arranged the sales.

The total price for all three transactions was $165.5 million. Two of the assets are in Los Angeles County and the third is in San Diego County.

Cushman & Wakefield’s National Industrial Advisory Group of Executive Vice Chairmen Jeff Chiate and Rick Ellison, Vice Chairmen Bryce Aberg and Jeff Cole, Directors Matt Leupold and Aubrie Monahan, and Associate Charlie Jacobs represented MetLife and procured the buyers in the three transactions.

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According to Cushman & Wakefield’s announcement, supplemented with information provided by Yardi Research Data, the portfolio included:

•  The Concourse

The property is a 420,697-square-foot, four-building industrial business park on 19.52 acres at 18505 Gale Ave. in the City of Industry, Calif. The Class A property features 3,000 square feet of retail space, 69 dock-high doors, nine grade-level doors and a 160-foot truck court. Its location provides ready freeway access and proximity to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The property was completed in 1989 and has been purchased by TA Realty.

•  The Redondo Beach Two Pack

The property consists of two buildings totaling 99,340 square feet at 3700 and 3730 Redondo Beach Ave., Redondo Beach. It features 16 dock-high doors, three grade-level doors and a clear height of 16 feet. The 5.1-acre Class B property was completed in 1962 and is near Los Angeles International Airport and major freeways. The buyer was Terreno Realty.

•  The Carlsbad Oaks Business Park

The property is a 78,143-square-foot building offering clear heights of 22 to 26 feet, grade and dock loading capabilities, and both warehouse and office space. GID was the buyer.

Not much fun in the sun

The Los Angeles County industrial space market continues to see modestly rising vacancy, which increased in the second quarter to 4.8 percent, up 70 basis points year-over-year, according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield. The quarter also saw negative net absorption, after two quarters of positive absorption. Of possible concern, although the development pipeline is currently just 4.5 million square feet, almost all of that is speculative.

And while total volume at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach saw a surge in traffic through May, this is seen as a result of importers front-loading shipments in anticipation of impending tariffs.

Vacancy in San Diego County’s industrial space market, too, has been edging up, by 230 basis points year-over-year, to 7.7 percent in the second quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield. In fact, this marked the highest overall vacancy since the end of 2013.

Further, marketwide occupancy dropped by 1 million square feet, making the past quarter the 10th in a row with occupancy losses.