Sale leaseback of suburban Boston industrial building trades for $9.6M

BOSTON, Nov. 7, 2023 – JLL Capital Markets announced today that it has closed the $9.6 million sale-leaseback of 77 Industrial Rowe, a 113,000-square-foot industrial building in the Boston suburb of Gardner, Massachusetts.

JLL represented the seller, Garlock Flexibles, a portfolio company of Astara Capital Partners, in the sale to Philadelphia-based Valley Forge Private Equity. Garlock Flexibles currently occupies the building and will lease the property on a long-term basis.

The one-story building, which was originally built in 1959 and expanded in 2004, features six dock doors and 30-foot clear heights. Situated on Route 2, 77 Industrial Rowe offers seamless access and connectivity to major interstates, including I-495 and I-190, which provide same-day access to all the major population hubs across the Northeast. The Route 2 corridor market boasts strong leasing fundamentals with an 8.5% increase in direct rents over the past year paired with no square footage of new supply in the 100,000-square-foot range planned to hit the market. This stretch of the Route 2 corridor is home to name brand tenants, like AIS, Masonite, DGC Cable, Seaman Paper and Atlantic Door.

The JLL Capital Markets team representing the seller out of Boston was led by Senior Director Lenny Pierce and Associate David Coffman. JLL’s Capital Markets Net Lease platform is led by Senior Managing Directors Coler Yoakam and Alex Sharrin.

“The sale-leaseback is a hugely compelling liquidity source for most corporate owner-occupiers of commercial real estate - especially in the industrial sector,” said Pierce. “Cap rates for warehouse, logistics and manufacturing assets remain dramatically lower than many other capital costs available to operators in this sector of the economy, and for many groups, the funds generated from this transaction are deployed to more fruitful avenues such as investing in new machinery, expanding workforces, or extinguishing corporate level debt.”

“The sale-leaseback of this and our other Garlock facilities made obvious financial sense” said Astara’s Rob Groberg. “JLL’s size and scale allowed them to access the widest possible buyer pool. Lenny and his team were able to generate attractive bids from both local and national buyer groups and qualify those groups most likely to execute seamlessly.”

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Astara Capital Partners is an integrated team of investors and operators investing in the middle market. The firm brings capital, strategic, and operational resources to its investments to build sustainable value and position them for long-term success. Astara focuses on a variety of sectors where it has deep experience, including packaging and converting, food, building products, forest products, and industrial manufacturing, distribution, and services. More information about Astara can be found at www.astaracapital.com.

Valley Forge Private Equity (“VFPE”) is a private investment fund manager that has been structuring Private Equity and Private Real Estate Funds for over 22 years. While the private equity funds focus in U.S. based lower-middle market buyout funds and co-investments, VFPE’s Real Estate Strategy is centered around acquiring assets from PE-backed businesses through sale-leaseback transactions and forming strategic partnerships with leading companies and asset managers. VFPE invests across multiple real estate asset classes including behavioral health, industrial, hospitality, office, and multifamily. More information about VFPE can be found at www.valleyforgeprivateequity.com.