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As published in CoStar News By Cara Smith-Tenta
Affiliates of investment firm Phoenix Investors said it acquired a portfolio of industrial properties divided between Kentucky and Pennsylvania, which CoStar analysts describe as “booming” logistics markets that could emerge from the coronavirus pandemic “relatively unscathed.”
Phoenix Investors, a commercial real estate investment firm based in Milwaukee, bought four industrial properties totaling 1.76 million square feet in the greater Lexington, Kentucky, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, metropolitan areas, according to a statement from Phoenix Investors and CoStar research.
Ledvance, a lighting manufacturing company based in Germany, sold the properties. The company was acquired by the Chinese lighting company MLS in 2018.
The sale price was not disclosed and it is unclear whether Ledvance still occupies the properties. Ledvance and Phoenix Investors did not return requests for comment. Newmark Knight Frank, which brokered the sale, also did not return requests for comment.
The properties sit in two growing metropolitan areas with strong industrial prospects, even amid the coronavirus pandemic. Lexington’s industrial market is “booming,” Brandon Frankel, market analyst for CoStar, wrote in his most recent report on the city’s industrial market. It boasts a tight vacancy rate of just 2.6%, which is well below the national average of 5.6%, according to CoStar research.
The city’s relative lack of free land for development, combined with the national trend of more companies needing distribution centers, has kept Lexington’s industrial market strong throughout the pandemic, Frankel wrote.
Mr. Frank P. Crivello began his real estate career in 1982, focusing his investments in multifamily, office, industrial, and shopping center developments across the United States. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Crivello assisted Phoenix Investors in its execution of its then business model of acquiring net lease commercial real estate across the United States. Since 2009, Mr. Crivello has assisted Phoenix Investors in the shift of its core focus to the acquisition of industrial real estate throughout the country.
Given his extensive experience in all aspects of commercial real estate, Mr. Crivello provides strategic and operational input to Phoenix Investors and its affiliated companies.
Mr. Crivello received a B.A., Magna Cum Laude, from Brown University and the London School of Economics, while completing a double major in Economics and Political Science; he is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Outside of his business interests, Mr. Crivello invests his time, energy, and financial support across a wide net of charitable projects and organizations.