Boca Raton-based IP Capital Partners added to its Jacksonville holdings with the Dec. 4 purchase of the Fanatics warehouse in West Jacksonville for $15 million.
Through SCIP 5245 LLC, the Florida group bought the almost 590,000-square-foot warehouse complex on about 28 acres at 5245 Commonwealth Ave.
“We are certainly bullish on the major industrial markets in Florida, and specifically those assets that cater to e-commerce distribution,” said IP Capital Partners Jason Isaacson.
Fanatics, founded in Jacksonville, sells licensed sports merchandise worldwide through e-commerce. It has operating offices and fulfillment centers in the United States, U.K., Germany, Spain, India, Hong Kong and Japan. Jacksonville is its East Coast headquarters.
Isaacson said the Fanatics property “is a tremendous infill location, it's got good bones and it has a fantastic tenant.”
He said Fanatics occupies about 560,000 square feet of the space with the remainder leased by Conlan Tire.
He said Conlan Tire has a long-term lease while Fanatics has a few years remaining.
“We would love for them to stay on the property and in Jacksonville for the long-term,” Isaacson said, adding that he has not had discussions yet with Fanatics about the lease.
Keeping Fanatics “certainly is part of the plan. It certainly is Plan A.”
Isaacson said short-term plans for the property are “status quo.”
“Our job as a landlord is to do what they need us to do to facilitate their business,” he said.
BankUnited of Miami Lakes financed the deal with an initial mortgage of $10.58 million with a maximum indebtedness, including future advances, of $21.15 million, according to the mortgage recorded with the Duval County Clerk of Courts.
The borrower is IPCP Florida Realty Value Fund II LP.
IP Capital Partners bought the property from Tower Jacksonville LLC and DM Jacksonville LLC, both based in Woodland, California, with Tower Investments LLC.
Tower Investments bought the property in 2016 for $10.5 million.
At the time, the warehouse was fully leased to two tenants – Fanatics and Dickinson Fleet Services.
The building was developed in 1960. A successor to Winn-Dixie Southeast Inc. sold the property in 2004 to the group that sold it to Tower Investments.
John Richardson, president and principal, and Bryan Bartlett, senior vice president and principal, with Newmark Phoenix Realty Group, represented the Tower Investments group in the sale to IP Capital Partners.
IP Capital Partners owns several Jacksonville properties.
In June, IP Capital Partners bought the Spring Lake Business Center the week after it sold the One Imeson center it bought in late 2011.
In 2013, the group bought what was then the Aetna Building – now the Eight Forty One office building anchored by One Call at 841 Prudential Drive on the Southbank.
In 2015, it bought the former Comcast building at 6805 Southpoint Parkway, renovated it and sold it this year in late June for the headquarters for Miller Electric Co.
“We've been very successful in Jacksonville,” Isaacson said.
“Obviously, Commonwealth is full but we hope to maintain the tenancy of Fanatics and continue to invest in a market that has been good to us and we've been good to it.”
Isaacson said he had no specific properties in mind but the company has a focus on buying larger infill industrial assets that cater to the e-commerce distribution industry.
“We are looking at more across Florida. We would love to buy more in Jacksonville,” he said.
“We have shown over the years that we have and will continue to make significant investment in the Jacksonville market,” he said.