Nearly 1 million-square-foot industrial park sells

TAMPA — Boston-based real estate investment firm High Street Realty Co. LLC purchased the 955,000-square-foot Tampa Distribution Center from MetLife Real Estate Investors. The purchase price had not been recorded yet and was unavailable as of deadline.

Built in 1973, Tampa Distribution Center contains six distribution buildings on a 53.8-acre parcel at 1212 N. 50th St., Tampa. The average unit size is 15,000 square feet. All of the buildings at Tampa Distribution Center are dock-high, tilt-wall construction with primarily 20-foot ceilings.

Prominent tenants include Lansing Building Products, Consolidated Container Co., Motion Industries, Ricoh USA and Brighton-Best International.

MetLife has owned the property since 1974.

High Street primarily invests in low-finish single and multitenant warehouse and distribution properties and portfolios in infill locations. Officials with High Street were not immediately available for comment. According to its website, its only holdings in the state is the Southport and Palmbay centers in Orlando.

Mike Davis, Rick Brugge and Michael Lerner of Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller.

Cushman & Wakefield Research reports that this sale is the largest single-site industrial transaction, by square footage, in the Tampa market since January 2010. Last week, Davis, Brugge and Lerner completed the largest overall industrial transaction in the past six quarters when it closed the $103 million sale of a 1.7 million-square foot industrial portfolio in Pinellas County. That portfolio included five industrial parks: Gateway Business Center, Gateway Business Park, Metropointe Commerce Park, Westbay Corporate Center and Joe's Creek Industrial Park.

Cushman & Wakefield's Julia Silva Rettig was retained to handle leasing the facility, and Cushman & Wakefield's Investor Services team was selected to manage the facility.