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Commercial real estate investment firm Franklin Partners has acquired the former Trendway Corp. plant in Holland Township, setting it up to be the largest available industrial space in West Michigan, executives announced today.
The Oak Brook, Ill.-based firm purchased the 457,400-square-foot industrial building in partnership with Northbrook, Ill.-based Bixby Bridge Capital LLC. The 32-acre site is located at 13467 Quincy St. and is expected to be available for occupancy by the end of 2024.
Fellowes Brands Inc., which acquired Trendway in 2019, started laying off employees at the location in May, with the last round of layoffs scheduled to take place in October, according to a WARN Act notice filed with the state earlier this year.
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Fellowes is in the process of shutting down operations at the building, Don Shoemaker, principal at Franklin Partners, told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.
The transaction moved quickly and was finalized June 21 for an undisclosed price. Franklin Partners has already heard from a few companies interested in leasing the space, Shoemaker said.
Buying up the 32-acre property made sense strictly from a supply and demand perspective since there is “almost no functional space available on the entire market,” Shoemaker said.
The industrial vacancy rate across Kent and Ottawa counties was at 1.6% for the first quarter of 2024, according to Advantage Commercial Real Estate’s latest market report. As well, CoStar Group Inc. published a report in March that found the greater Grand Rapids region’s 2.5% vacancy rate was the lowest industrial vacancy rate among the 50 largest industrial markets in the country.
The plant’s current owner is in the process of winding down operations. Credit: Courtesy of Franklin Partners
Franklin Partners owns more than 800 acres of industrially zoned land in the Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Benton Harbor markets.
“What we really like about the building is it’s not simply a distribution building,” Shoemaker said. “It’s a manufacturing building with robust power, we have access to rail, and good dock access around the entire property. We are big believers in the West Michigan manufacturing market and the onshoring of that landing in West Michigan. The lack of available facilities makes this really attractive.”
Shoemaker added that the facility is in great condition and won’t require much renovation before the next tenant moves in. He expects a single user to move in, but the facility could be easily divided up because of multiple truck doors and offices spread throughout the space, he said.
“Our intuition is it will be (leased by) a good West Michigan company that is picking up more business and needs a space to grow,” Shoemaker said.
Tom Postma and Jason DeWitt from Lakeshore Commercial Real Estate, along with Dan Arends from Colliers were the listing agents for the property. Trent Wieringa and Duke Suwyn from Advantage Commercial Real Estate represented the buyers in the sale.
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This article was originally published by a www.crainsgrandrapids.com . Read the Original article here. .