Key Logistics Center building sells — again

It seems like only yesterday that DHL Supply Chain purchased a 520,000-square-foot distribution building in Lakeland’s Key Logistics Center occupied by European furniture maker Ikea as a fulfillment center for Tampa, Orlando and other Florida locales.

Ok, actually it was late November.

Just a few weeks later, though, the Blue Steel Development project was sold again, as part of a worldwide portfolio deal between DHL and Global Logistics Properties (GLP), an Asian conglomerate whose U.S. headquarters is in Chicago, according to Polk County property records.

DHL had acquired the building, completed in 2018, for $42.46 million. As part of the GLP transaction, an allocation of $47.425 million was recorded in favor of Gear Breed Highway Propco LLC, a GLP affiliate.

Ikea occupies about 60% of the 5360 Old Tampa Highway property, which sits on 25 acres.

GLP’s purchase was fortuitous: Late last month, the Tampa Bay chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks Tampa Bay chapter named the DHL deal the “Best Industrial Transaction” for 2018 in the region.

GLP is among the world’s largest logistics companies, with more than 178 million square feet of commercial space under management. Among its 36 target markets are Tampa and Orlando, of which Lakeland is smack in the middle.

Blue Steel, meanwhile, is developing another pair of buildings within the Key Logistics, says Colliers International Executive Managing Director Ryan Vaught, who is working with the developer.

A 491,000-square-foot building and a 350,000-square-foot building, both of which are being built — as was the larger of the trio — on a speculative basis, are expected to be completed by the end of June, Vaught says.