A Chicago-based investment group bought the 72-acre One Imeson Center in North Jacksonville for almost $16.3 million and intends to invest about $2.5 million into upgrades to capitalize on port and shipping logistics.
GIV Imeson LLC, based in Chicago, bought the 1 Imeson Park Blvd. property in mid-December from Jacksonville Holdings Inc., which consists of a group that has owned the property since 1994.
The property was developed in 1974 as a Sears catalog sales distribution center.
The site comprises a 1.7 million-square-foot office-warehouse and about 37 acres of property that can accommodate up to 1 million square feet of space for development, according to a broker representing the property.
“We can handle distribution, manufacturing, outside storage, call center space and development,” said Ladson Montgomery, vice president and principal of Grubb & Ellis Phoenix Realty Group, which is the brokerage agency for the project.
Montgomery and Bobby Gatling, a Phoenix Realty Group vice president for industrial real estate brokerage, will handle the project.
A GIV Imeson representative referred questions to Montgomery.
According to the GIV representative and Montgomery, GIV has been looking at the property since March. The group looks for property that presents opportunities for leasing and development, which Montgomery said is known as “value-added” property, rather than focusing on fully leased projects.
They said the property is convenient to the Jacksonville Port Authority terminals, which are preparing for the 2014 expansion of the Panama Canal and subsequent storage and distribution opportunities.
The property is within Imeson International Industrial Park at Main Street and Heckscher Drive in North Jacksonville.
Montgomery said the property also is near the traffic corridors of Heckscher Drive, Interstate 295, I-95 and U.S. 17 and also is near the North Jacksonville labor force.
Duval County Property Appraiser records show that the property was sold by SLS Inc. to Jacksonville Center Inc. in 1994 for $16.6 million and then to Jacksonville Holdings Inc. for $29.5 million in 1997.
The Jacksonville Center and Jacksonville Holdings groups consist of many of the same officers, according to state corporate records.
Montgomery said the 1997 price included a financing package, which is reflected in the higher sales figure.
Jacksonville Holdings Inc. is led by President Carey Webb, who was not available for comment.
According to GIV and Montgomery, the pricing will allow it to “be aggressive and to strike deals.”
The building contains about 1.6 million square feet of distribution and warehouse space and mezzanine office space of about 92,000 square feet, Montgomery said.
The warehouse space has some tenants, including Bacardi and the Komyo distributor of Honda products, said Montgomery.
The office space previously served as an America Online call center and as an operations center for Prudential and Aetna Inc.
The America Online center had expanded from 300 employees when it opened in 1995 to 1,700 when it left its 95,000 square feet of space there a decade ago for a new building near the University of North Florida. It subsequently closed and the building at UNF is being used by the university.
GIV Imeson’s push to lease space would help minimize the 21.1 percent vacancy rate among industrial properties in North Jacksonville. The Cushman & Wakefield firm reported vacancy rates for the third quarter, which was July-September, and found that the overall industrial vacancy rate was 11 percent in Duval, Clay and St. Johns counties.
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