Boston-based Plymouth Industrial REIT Inc. announced Thursday it signed a definitive agreement to buy a 20-building, 1.1 million-square-foot light industrial and flex portfolio in Jacksonville for $97.1 million in cash.
The portfolio comprises three business parks – Center Point Business Park, Liberty Business Park and Salisbury Business Park.
The three parks total 1,133,516 square feet of light industrial and flex buildings in Southside, near Interstate 95 and Butler Boulevard.
Plymouth did not announce the seller but records show Greenfield Partners LLC, a real estate investment firm based in Westport, Connecticut, as the owner.
The properties are 96 percent leased to 40 tenants with an average lease term of more than three years remaining.
Tenants include Comcast, Veritiv, Cintas, Alstom, Staples, Cardinal Health, The Home Depot, Johnson Controls, Safelite AutoGlass and Shaw.
The acquisition is expected to close in mid-December.
The sale comes five years after Greenfield Partners bought the buildings among a portfolio of properties from Liberty Property Trust.
Liberty Property Trust sold 32 Jacksonville buildings along with 115 undeveloped acres for more than $197 million to Greenfield Partners LLC in December 2013.
Plymouth expects to fund the acquisition with about $34 million in proceeds from a strategic investment from an affiliate of Madison International Realty Holdings LLC and about $63 million in short-term borrowings from KeyBank.
“We have targeted Jacksonville for some time and coveted a meaningful presence that gives us immediate scale, infill locations and a mix of light industrial and flex buildings to accommodate a wealth of tenants,” said Pendleton White Jr., Plymouth president and chief investment officer.
He said Jacksonville is the third fastest-growing market in the country, “with one of the tightest industrial vacancies and lowest amount of inventory under construction of any market we have analyzed in the Southeast.”