4/8/13

Bisnow Exclusive: Venture One's Massive Buy

Chicago-based Venture One Real Estate has acquired one of its largest buildings in a JV: a 644k SF industrial property on 35 acres in Romeoville, principal Matt Goode exclusively tells Bisnow.
In impressive product placement, Matt points to the company’s new property at 1300 Naperville Dr on a Sharp TV— Sharp is the seller. Built in 1979 (expanded in 1993) for Lowrey Organ Co, the property is a functional, well-located asset in the I-55 corridor that can be repositioned in the market at a discount, Matt says. The I-55 corridor has become land-constrained for the first time, and absorption of existing product will lead to rent growth, he tells us. Acquiring the asset in a six-month sale-leaseback with Sharp, Venture One will redesign the facility to accommodate one to four tenants between 100k SF and 644k SF.

After Dr. Seuss characters Thing 1 and Thing 2 graduated from the UChicago Booth School of Business, they became Tenant 1 and Tenant 2. Venture One’s JV partner, DRA Advisors, is an investment adviser with $10.5B in assets under management; it works with local operators.

Here’s what attracted Matt to the property (besides profound curiosity about where LCD displays are repaired):

• It can power a small city (15k amps at 480V)
• Elusive industrial air-conditioning in 387k SF
• A manufacturer/hoarder’s delight (up to 224 trailer parking spaces and up to 102 loading docks)
The building also offers 25k to 100k SF of high-quality office and 15k SF of furnished and wired call center space. The sale was brokered by Cushman & Wakefield’s Jason West, Sean Henrick, James Carpenter, and Michael Tenteris; Jason and Sean will continue as leasing brokers.

The team bringing Venture One’s newest asset into the modern era: Ware Malcomb for architectural services, Jacob & Hefner Associates for civil engineering, and ARCO/Murray as GC. While Sharp winds down at the facility, Matt is excited for golf season to start and is patiently waiting for his 17-month-old to be big enough to go to Disney World. He also thinks the White Sox are extremely undervalued.

Venture One Real Estate

Venture One is a real estate private equity fund manager, developer and operating company specializing in the industrial property sector. Headquartered in Chicago, Venture One manages a series of discretionary value-add investment funds that target opportunities throughout the Chicago MSA and Northeast Industrial Region. Principals of Venture One have over $7 billion of transactional experience. For further information go to www.VentureOneRE.com.

DRA Advisors

DRA Advisors LLC is a New York-based registered investment advisor with approximately 95 employees specializing in real estate investment management services for institutional and private investors, including pension funds, university endowments, sovereign wealth funds, foundations, and insurance companies.  Since DRA was founded in 1986, the firm has opened additional offices in Miami and San Francisco while acquiring over $38 billion of real estate.  The acquisitions include 85 million square feet of industrial, 65 million square feet of office, 87 million square feet of retail and 85,000 multifamily units.  As of December 31, 2022, DRA has $13.3 billion in gross assets under management. http://draadvisors.com