JLL Capital Markets has arranged a $20 million refinancing for 735 Dowd Ave., a 175,000 s/f cold-storage facility near Port Newark-Elizabeth in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
JLL worked on behalf of the borrower, Elberon Development Group, to place the 20-year, fixed-rate loan with a life insurance company. Loan proceeds were used to refinance the existing debt on the property.
Completed in 2013, the property was a build-to-suit cold storage facility for Seafrigo, a France-based food distributor specializing in handling chilled, frozen and ambient products. The cold storage building features 40-foot clear heights, 16,000 s/ft of two-story office space, 25 tailboards and temperature-controlled rooms ranging from -10 degrees up to 55 degrees.
The property is located within two miles of Newark Liberty International Airport and five miles from Port Newark-Elizabeth, one of the largest container ports in the country.
The facility is located within the Elizabeth Northern NJ industrial submarket, which had a vacancy rate of 3.4 percent at the end of Q1 2020, and cold storage product in the submarket is fully leased.
The submarket has continued to demonstrate excellent fundamentals over the years as vacancy rates have remained below five percent since Q4 2015, and triple-net direct rents have grown 2.2 percent quarter-over-quarter in the same timeframe.
The JLL Capital Markets team representing the borrower was led by Senior Managing Directors Michael Klein and Jon Mikula and Analyst Carlos Silva.
“JLL is pleased to have worked on Elberon Development’s behalf to secure very attractive long-term debt on the property,” Klein said. “Demand for high-quality, state-of-the-art refrigerated warehouse properties continues to increase, and the property’s location with immediate access to the port, airport and highway infrastructure made this a highly sought-after loan for the lender.”
