New York City's W.P. Carey fund buys, rebranding Fibber McGee's Closet

BUYER: FM Naples Storage 18 (FL) LLC (CPA: 18 Limited Partnership), New York City
SELLER: Fibber McGee's Closet Inc.
PROPERTY: 571 Airport Road N., 3555, 3687, 3727 and 3806 Exchange Ave., Naples
PRICE: $16.43 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $345,000, July 2000

PLANS, DESCRIPTION:
CPA: 18 Limited Partnership, an investment fund managed by W.P. Carey Inc., purchased the 179,791-square-foot Fibber McGee's Closet property for $16.43 million.

The price equated to $91 per square foot. That figure is higher than the two-year average price per square foot for industrial space ($49) in Southwest Florida, according to the CoStar Group.

Along with the main self-storage facility, the property included a separate building leased to and operated by Enterprise Rent-A-Car and another building housing Airport Road Auto Parts.

“In storage you look at the underlying demographics of an area,” says Liz Raun Schlesinger, managing director and co-head of self-storage investment for New York City-based W. P. Carey. “Naples is a very affluent area generally and Florida, demographically, has been growing extremely fast. We think it will benefit from professional management and that it's in a very strong location.”

The new ownership is rebranding the self-storage property as an Extra Space Storage facility. The ownership is also looking at possibly increasing the facility's footprint.

Founded in 1973, W.P. Carey is a public real estate investment trust that specializes in long-term sale-leaseback and build-to-suit financing. It also manages several non-traded REITs with about $8.3 billion in assets under management.