Matthew McGowan, Reporter
Fort Worth Business Press
...
FORT WORTH -- At
first glance, the purchase of the former Ranch Style Beans
manufacturing facility in East Fort Worth may indicate a strengthening
pulse of the broader local industrial real estate submarket, but the
facility’s buyers said they picked up the property as more of a one-off
from their 2012 strategy, not because they see this as a particularly
opportune time to plunge back into the industrial sector.
Fort Worth’s Conti Warehouses purchased the 212,000-square-foot heavy
industrial facility from Allens Canning Co. late last month. It was the
firm’s second acquisition this year. The first was the
103,000-square-foot vacant Target building on Cherry Lane in West Fort
Worth.
“It just popped up … ,” said Bruce Conti, the company’s president.
“It was a pretty good deal. And it goes back to our roots as an
industrial provider.”
But Conti’s other buildings, including a couple it plans to purchase
this year, are slated for office or retail conversion, or, at the very
least, light industrial tenants – nothing heavy. The Target facility,
which Conti closed on in early January, is also slated for multi-tenant
retail, light industrial and office use.
“We aren’t trying to build out too many traditional industrial
buildings right now, even though Ranch Style is that particular type of
asset,” Conti said. “Right now we’re trying to focus on some
redevelopment – could be retail, could be closer to office conversion –
and work on that for a while.”
By “a while,” Conti means three or four years, at least until the
pickings run slim. Right now, his firm is focusing its efforts on
acquiring “distressed buildings in decent office locations.”
The next acquisition is a 74,000-square-foot warehouse in the 4000
block of Lubbock Avenue in South Fort Worth, which Conti plans to also
convert into mixed-use retail and office space with perhaps some
distribution. Conti and his company’s vice president, Ryan Wood, said
they’re also preparing to purchase yet another building for office
build-outs this year, but he declined to go into any further detail.
Once these prime locations run out, Conti said, he and his staff will
return to their traditional niche: heavy industrial space such as the
canning facility.
It’s a timely strategy. Local real estate insiders expect 2012’s
industrial submarket, unlike the retail and office sectors, to remain
tepid as the economy continues its slow climb out of the recession.
Todd Burnette, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle’s Fort Worth office, told the
Fort Worth Business Press
early this year that he doesn’t expect the local industrial market to
regain much of its pre-recession steam until 2013 at the earliest.
He noted distribution as a possible exception as more and more
big-box stores beef up their inventories to keep pace with growing
consumer demand.
If Conti Warehouses is any indication, heavy industrial demand may
not be growing, nor is the sector in a freefall. Most of Conti’s total
portfolio, now exceeding 2 million square feet, is devoted to heavier
industrial.
And, as the firm’s president pointed out, his overall occupancy rates
are above 90 percent, a sign there’s still plenty of local industry
that needs space.
Source:
Fort Worth Business Press
