Page 24 - RENJ May 2021 Issue 53

22 MAY 2021
Montwards LLC has agreed to sell an industrial property in Columbus, Ohio, that is home
to a newly built, 300,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center, following the firm’s redevelopment of a property that it first acquired nearly two decades ago.
The real estate firm, owned by Paul V. Profeta
— in central New Jersey — as part of a deal that could bring much-needed space to the New Jersey Turnpike corridor.
“Although I’ve developed
properties all over the country
— and am currently developing a 155,000-square-foot warehouse in Salem, New Hampshire — I prefer to keep my activities closer to home,” said Profeta, president of Paul V. Profeta & Associates. “The demand for logistical space in northern and central New Jersey is significantly larger than secondary or tertiary markets like Columbus, Ohio, leading to a market need for buildings of 1 million square feet or greater.”
Profeta, through Montwards LLC, acquired the Columbus property in 2003 as part of a 1031 exchange,
using the proceeds from a shopping center sold in Fort Collins, Colorado. The site at the time was home to
a fully leased, 260,000-square-foot warehouse sitting on 12 acres of a 29- acre lot. The 17 acres of vacant land were just minutes from downtown Columbus.
Unisource, a division of the paper manufacturer Georgia-Pacific, occupied the industrial building on
a 15-year, triple net lease, but did
not renew when the deal expired
in 2018. Montwards then put the warehouse up for sale or lease, while simultaneously moving to develop the 17 vacant acres in order to capitalize on its proximity to the downtown.
“Brokers were discouraging me because the vacant land was not located in a ‘warehouse
neighborhood’ and there were no other warehouses around,” Profeta said. “I thought the fact that we were less than a mile from downtown Columbus and within the city limits, plus being two blocks from Interstate 670 ... was strong enough reason for putting up another warehouse.”
He noted that, prior to 2018, the vacant land had been included in the leasehold for Unisource, which would not allow him to develop the site unless he gave them a credit in the lease payments or a capital payment. But after Unisource failed to renew, Profeta tapped a project team that included Red Architecture + Planning, Mannik Smith Group as its engineer and Pepper Construction as the general contractor for a speculative 300,000-square-foot facility.
Paul V. Profeta
and based
in Roseland, completed the transaction some four months after delivering the facility at
510 Sunbury Road. Profeta
now plans to use the proceeds to buy an industrial site much closer to home
MIDWEST SUCCESS
Profeta sells 300,000 sq. ft. Amazon warehouse site in Ohio after redevelopment
By Joshua Burd
Montwards LLC built 510 Sunbury Road, a 300,000-square-foot industrial facility in Columbus, Ohio, as part of a redevelopment that ultimately attracted Amazon as a tenant.
Courtesy: Montwards LLC