New-York-based Blackstone Real Estate has entered into an agreement to purchase six industrial properties in the Toronto area for more than $400M.
The properties' locations have not yet been publicly disclosed, but are said total 1.5M sq. ft and are fully occupied, having traits seen as desirable to tenants such as being newer builds, having higher than average heights, and being in core infill locations.
“Global logistics is one of our highest conviction investment themes, and high-quality, last-mile industrial properties like these continue to benefit from some of the strongest real estate fundamentals in Canada," Janice Lin, Blackstone’s Head of Canada Real Estate, said in a statement to STOREYS. "We look forward to continuing to grow our logistics portfolio, while supporting the supply chain in Toronto and providing best-in-class real estate to our tenants.”
The sale represents one of the largest private industrial portfolios to change hands in Canada since Blackstone's 2018 privatization of Pure Industrial Real Estate Investment Trust -- a transaction valued at $3.8B.
Although the seller has not yet been confirmed, a report from Bloomberg identified the the party as the asset-management arm of Toronto-Dominion Bank, according to an anonymous source. TD did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Even as Canada's real estate market saw volatile fluctuations, the demand for industrial properties has remained strong, especially in the Greater Toronto Area. Last month, Thomas Cattana, Vice President at Colliers, said that Toronto-area vacancy rates are the lowest they’ve been in recent memory.
“If you look back 10 years ago, the availability rate would have been a number around 5%, and today that availability rate as of Q3 2022 is less than 1% — it’s 0.7%,” Cattana told STOREYS.
