Taurus Investment Holdings acquired a strategically positioned industrial portfolio, comprised of five Class B buildings totaling 339,136 square feet in the South Jersey/Philadelphia market, according to a Thursday announcement.
The assets are currently 100% leased to 22 tenants. This latest acquisition expands Taurus’ overall U.S. industrial footprint to over 18 million square feet across 12 states, following a recent last-mile acquisition in August.
“This acquisition, based on the strength of the shallow-bay market and an extremely limited competitive supply, demonstrates our team’s ability to source unique opportunities,” Peter Merrigan, CEO of Taurus, said. “As the market continues to evolve, Taurus has maintained our cautious, disciplined approach, but also retained our entrepreneurial flexibility, allowing us to strategically enhance assets to offer our clients the best risk-adjusted returns.”
Taurus plans to add a new Class A industrial property, spanning 64,500 square feet, on the site of an unused parking field adjacent to one of the properties in the portfolio.
Under the New Jersey Community Solar Program, RENU Communities, the decarbonization-focused subsidiary of Taurus, will oversee the installation of rooftop solar panels on four of the existing assets and the new development. RENU anticipates that the solar installation will offset the portfolio’s annual carbon emissions by over 300%, rendering it carbon-negative.
Southern New Jersey has emerged as a cost-effective alternative to northern New Jersey, with tenants increasingly relocating to South Jersey to take advantage of lower operational costs, including reduced occupancy expenses, an abundance of affordable labor and lower real estate taxes.
“Shallow-bay industrial properties within 10 miles of I-95/I-295 in the New Jersey corridor currently have a vacancy rate of only 2.7%, with a mere 1.8% of the inventory under construction,” Lathan Allen, managing director of U.S. Industrial at Taurus, said. “This favorable supply/demand dynamic is expected to result in shallow-bay industrial properties outperforming the broader market, leading to higher occupancy rates and rent growth.”
