Beverly Hills investor that owns area apartment complexes acquires $44M distribution site
The California owner of multifamily housing complexes in Tacoma recently acquired a massive warehouse site in Auburn.
Cushman & Wakefield commercial real estate firm on Monday said in a news release it had arranged the sale-and-acquisition loan for Auburn Park 44, a 204,458-square-foot multi-tenant industrial/distribution building on more than 9 acres.
The site was developed by Panattoni Development in 2007, which sold it in 2008 to an LLC affiliated with BlackRock for $17.8 million, King County property records show.
The BlackRock-affiliated LLC sold the site in February for $43.75 million to an LLC affiliated with Beverly Hills-based Kennedy Wilson, a real estate investment company, property records show.
Other LLCs affiliated with Kennedy Wilson in 2020 acquired The Pacifica apartments in Tacoma and in 2023 acquired Ascend Rainier Ridge apartments (now renamed Solace at Rainier Ridge), between South Hill and Graham. Kennedy Wilson lists many other area multifamily sites in the state in its portfolio.
The Auburn site appears to be Kennedy Wilson's first warehouse/distribution purchase in the area and has an appraised value of nearly $42 million, according to King County property records online.
Auburn Park 44 is at 814 44th St. and current tenants include TireHub, a national tire distributor, and Belshaw, which specializes in baking equipment primarily tied to doughnut production.
According to the release, Cushman & Wakefield's Jeff Chiate, Matthew Leupold, Bryce Aberg, Rick Ellison and Aubrie Monahan of the firm's National Industrial Group – West represented the seller. Cushman & Wakefield's Patrick Mullin in collaboration with Andrew Hitchcock of CBRE also provided local leasing advisory.
Additionally, a Cushman & Wakefield Equity, Debt & Structured Finance team arranged the acquisition loan on behalf of Kennedy Wilson.
'This is an institutional-quality industrial asset well positioned in Auburn, WA, considered as one of the most sought-after industrial submarkets in the country, with vacancy at just 2.9% at the close of 2024,' said Jeff Chiate, executive vice chair for Cushman & Wakefield, in a statement.
'The property features exceptional access to an abundant labor pool, over 4.5 million consumers within a 50-mile radius,' he added, along with 'long-term tenancy and major companies that have occupied their space since building inception as well as headquartered at Auburn Park 44.'
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