Glenstar Logistics Sells Fort Myers, Fla., Industrial Park

CHICAGO / FORT MYERS, Fla. (October 22, 2024) — A venture of Glenstar Logistics and Columnar Investments today announced it has sold Tri-County 75, a 72-acre, four-building industrial park in Fort Myers, Fla., to an undisclosed buyer. Completed in October 2023, the 818,000-square-foot industrial campus at 6115-6150 Tri-County Commerce Way is 95% leased. CBRE arranged the sale, which closed on Oct. 21.

“We identified the strong demand for industrial in Southwest Florida, secured an ideal land site and developed speculative warehouses with an ‘end-user first’ approach,” said Brian Netzky, principal of Chicago-based Glenstar Logistics. “As a result, we quickly leased the buildings to Fortune 500 and fast-growing local firms seeking easy access to Interstate 75 and Southwest Florida International Airport. With this sale, we achieved our development goal for Tri-County 75 and delivered excellent returns for our investors.”

The park’s rear load and cross-dock facilities range in size from 76,210 to 404,050 square feet and feature best-in-class specifications with concrete tilt-up construction, 32- to 36-foot clear heights, 142 trailer parking spots, large truck courts, abundant trailer stalls and easy highway access.

The firm tapped Netzky’s 30 years of expertise as a tenant broker to develop the industrial facilities from the tenant point of view. “We laid out the park in an ideal configuration for e-commerce, logistics, distribution and light to heavy industrial production,” Netzky said. “We also incorporated abundant outdoor space for storage and maneuverability, knowing these features are in high demand.”

When Glenstar broke ground on the park, Southwest Florida’s industrial vacancy rate stood at 1% and has since risen to 6.4%, mainly due to the increase in deliveries from 650,000 square feet in the first half of 2022 to 1.2 million square feet in 2024, according to Colliers.

Tenants at Tri-County 75 include Ferguson Enterprises, a national distributor of plumbing and HVAC supplies; a Fortune 500 beverage company; Orlando, Fla.-based Mechanical One, a home repair and maintenance company; NB Handy, a Virginia-based distributor of metals, HVAC, commercial roofing and machinery products; Coldest, a Florida-based manufacturer of water bottles and other related products; and a Fortune 500 company that is a provider of large third-party logistics.

“Tri-County 75 is an outstanding example of our investment strategy of taking well-located, unentitled land in a growth market from a greenfield site to delivery of a best-in-class product. We are thrilled to have worked with a first-class development partner in Glenstar Logistics”, said Matthew Omundson, Managing Director of Columnar.

Strategically located for last-mile distribution at the southeast corner of Interstate 75 and Luckett Road, Tri-County 75 is within a two-hour drive of 4.4 million people. The industrial park is a 12-minute drive from the Southwest Florida International Airport, 33 miles north of Naples, Fla., and 73 miles south of Sarasota, Fla.

Southwest Florida has a population of 1.5 million, which has increased 9.5% since 2020 and is expected to increase another 7.4% by 2029, according to the Lee County Economic Development Office. This growth puts further strain on the industrial market as demand has increased for same/next-day delivery.

“Not only is Southwest Florida one of the most rapidly urbanizing metropolitan areas in the state of Florida, but it is also the most underserved logistics market, with only 40 square feet of industrial space per capita,” said Jose Lobón, vice chairman with CBRE National Partners.

Lobón, along with vice chairmen Frank Fallon and Trey Barry and Vice President Royce Rose, represented the seller in the transaction. The team was assisted by Kris Courier, senior vice president, and Rian Smith, first vice president, with CBRE Industrial Leasing, and Gabriel Braun and Daniel Sarmiento, financial analysts with CBRE National Partners.

Ware Malcomb served as project architect for Tri-County 75, while DeLisi Fitzgerald was the civil engineer. The Naples-Fort Myers office of Lee & Associates oversaw leasing.

With a bullish outlook for industrial in the U.S. Southeast, Glenstar Logistics is nearing completion of the first of five buildings at its new 290-acre Cherokee Commerce Center 85 (CCC-85) development in Gaffney, S.C., adjacent to Interstate 85 in upstate South Carolina’s Cherokee County industrial corridor. The cross-docked 550,520-square-foot warehouse is being built on a speculative basis, with the flexibility to expand to 1.3 million square feet. Potential uses include warehousing and distribution, food processing, assembly/light manufacturing and refrigeration/cold storage. The building will feature 40-foot clear heights, 56-feet-by-50-feet column spacing, 60-foot speed bays, up to 232 dock doors, four drive-in doors and abundant flexible parking while accommodating up to 100MW of power within 3 years. Upon full buildout, the park will total up to 3.6 million square feet.

About Glenstar Logistics: 

Glenstar Logistics, the industrial arm of Glenstar, develops and invests in state-of-the-art warehouse, distribution and manufacturing facilities primarily in the southeast region of the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, Glenstar Logistics leverages decades-long relationships with local brokers, logisticians and end users to provide a unique insight on key factors tenants evaluate when making site selections. With 400+ acres currently under control, the team combines decades of real estate experience and proprietary third-party data analytics to direct every aspect of the development process with the end user in mind.

About Columnar Investments

Columnar is a vertically integrated real estate investment and development company which sets itself apart from its competitors by having the capabilities in house to take a piece of land from greenfield through vertical construction.  A close-knit team of managers and engineers have decades of experience in all facets of the complex development process including land entitlements, zoning, infrastructure improvements, master-planning, lot development, ground-up construction and development.  Currently, Columnar is busy developing over 4,000 acres of land including 3,500 single-family lots, 3,000 multifamily units, 5 million square feet of industrial distribution, and over 2 million square feet of retail and medical uses, across 5 states in the Sunbelt.  Additionally, Rockwell Homes, an affiliate, is building single-family home across Florida and Texas.  Columnar has family roots in Traylor Construction Group, a third-generation, family owned heavy civil, marine, and industrial contractor founded in 1946. 

About CBRE Group, Inc.

CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2023 revenue). The company has more than 130,000 employees (including Turner & Townsend employees) serving clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE serves a diverse range of clients with an integrated suite of services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com.