Hialeah Gardens industrial site trades at $1M/acre, as market softens

A Hialeah Gardens industrial outdoor storage site fetched $1.2 million per acre, marking a price drop from similar properties a year ago — and a harbinger that the market is softening.

Triarch Capital Group bought the property at 12601 West Okeechobee Road from Princeton, New Jersey-based Essential Properties Realty Trust, according to broker Jose Sasson. Triarch paid $7.2 million for the 6.1-acre site.

Sasson and Roberto Susi, both of Axiom Capital Advisors, represented the buyer in the off-market deal.

The site has nearly 28,000 square feet of buildings that were completed in 1983, property records show. EquipmentShare, which rents and sells construction supplies, fully leases the property, Sasson said.

The sale price marks a significant increase in the property’s value since it last traded for $2.4 million in 2021. Yet, Sasson said the latest deal shows that the market’s overheating is abating. In early 2022, industrial outdoor storage real estate traded from $2.5 million to $3 million per acre, he said.

“Things have dropped in price … because the market as a whole has softened,” Sasson said. “The rise in interest rates has impacted pretty much all asset classes.”

In April of last year, CenterPoint Properties dropped $47.5 million — or $3.9 million an acre — for the 12-acre outdoor truck storage at 17707 Northwest Miami Court in Miami Gardens. That same month, Seagis Property Group paid $14.8 million — or $2.3 million an acre — for the 6.3-acre trailer parking lot at 13399 Northwest 113th Avenue Road in Medley.

Signs that South Florida’s industrial market is softening appeared late last year. In the fourth quarter, the tri-county region’s vacancy creeped up to 4 percent from 3.4 percent, year-over-year, according to Newmark.

Miami-Dade County industrial tenant demand in the fourth quarter plummeted to 37,000 square feet from 1.7 million square feet in the same period of 2021. Although vacancies rose to 3.1 percent from 2.6 percent, landlords remained confident. They pushed up asking rents to $13.37 a square foot in the fourth quarter, compared to $9.96 a square foot during the fourth quarter of 2021.

Triarch Capital, based in Aventura, has a portfolio spanning 4.5 million square feet of mostly retail and grocery-anchored shopping centers, though it also invests in offices and industrial, according to its website. Daniel Halberstein, Mario Grosfeld and Jorge Linkewer founded the firm in 1996. Mario’s son, Stefan Grosfeld, is a principal.

The Grosfelds and Linkewer also are with Axiom Capital, according to the brokerage’s website.

In 2021, Triarch dropped $10.4 million for a pair of distribution warehouses at 950-952 and 940 Eller Drive in Dania Beach, as well as the adjacent half-acre lot.

Hialeah Gardens, which neighbors the much bigger city of Hialeah, has experienced some industrial sales activity. Last summer, EverWest Real Estate bought the newly built warehouse at 10900 Northwest 146th Street in Hialeah Gardens for $43.2 million.