Newport Beach-based CT Realty Investors has bought its second massive industrial development site in less than a month after closing on land in Atlanta.
The privately held company, one of Orange County’s biggest industrial developers and investors, said it was part of a partnership that bought 213 acres of industrially zoned land near the city late last month.
The partnership is planning a three-building, 3.5 million-square-foot industrial project called Palmetto Logistics Park.
The deal also includes an option to buy an adjacent 145 acres at the site, which is near a CSX intermodal facility and Interstate 85.
Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
CT Realty made the buy through its Port Logistics Realty affiliate; Seal Beach-based Xebec Realty is also part of Port Logistics, whose largest project is a 9-million-square-foot logistics park project in Dallas.
The land was acquired in a venture with Prudential Global Investment Management, a large industrial real estate investor based in Newark, N.J., that’s partnered with CT Realty on other projects on the West Coast. The venture also includes Atlanta developer River Oaks Capital Partners.
The purchase “is such an uncommon opportunity to acquire what is essentially an infill parcel for a significant logistics park,” said CT Realty Managing Partner James “Watty” Watson. “There simply isn’t a site this large and this close to Atlanta that can support the scale of logistics development we have planned.”
The greater Atlanta industrial market represents about 628 million square feet and had a 7.5% vacancy rate at the end of the first quarter, according to local data from brokerage Transwestern. Nearly 19 million square feet was under development as of March, according to its data.
The deal in Georgia comes a few weeks after CT Realty announced the buy of a 345-acre site in the Central Valley city of Stockton. It’s part of NorCal Logistics Center, a large master-planned industrial campus about 75 miles east of the Port of Oakland.
CT Realty said it plans to develop 4.4 million square feet of high-clearance distribution, e-commerce/logistics and advanced manufacturing buildings at the site. The project’s first phase of three buildings totaling 1.7 million square feet broke ground last month, and the developer estimates construction will cost $135 million.
It’s one of the largest speculative industrial developments in Northern California in years.
Crystal Cove Closings
If you were waiting for a drop in prices at homes being built by New Home Co. in Newport Beach’s Crystal Cove community before making an offer, you are out of luck.
The Aliso Viejo-based homebuilder said it sold out its two new neighborhoods there, Coral Crest and Coral Canyon, in less than a year for a combined $322 million.
The neighborhoods, totaling 55 homes, were promoted as the final collection of luxury homes to be built in Crystal Cove.
The 27 homes at Coral Crest sold for about $196 million, or an average of $7.2 million. The 28 at Coral Canyon sold for about $126 million, or $4.1 million on average, according to the builder.
New Home Co. bought the Crystal Cove land in 2015 from Newport Beach-based Irvine Co. as part of a portfolio sale of sites in Irvine and Newport Beach that traded for about $250 million, according to regulatory filings.
The most active builder of luxury homes in Orange County the past few years has a couple of other pricey home projects in the works at other Irvine Co.-run communities.
At Irvine’s Orchard Hills, it plans a set of homes called Lucca at prices starting in the low $2 millions.
This summer, it will enter Eastwood Village in Irvine with a neighborhood called Morro, where prices will start in the mid $1 millions.
