Commercial Property News
Titan Buys Salt Lake Industrial Property
November 30, 2005

By Dees Stribling

In the chase for deals, investors in the industrial market are seeing opportunities ever deeper in markets away from the coasts and the Great Lakes. This week Los Angeles-based Titan Real Estate Investment Group Inc. did exactly that by acquiring the four-building Draper PAS Park, an industrial facility in Draper, Utah, south of Salt Lake City, a market that’s been sluggish for a few years, but which is now making a comeback.

“This is an opportune time in a market like Salt Lake City,” Kevin Kaseff, a managing partner for Titan, told CPN. “It’s been very soft until recently. But now companies are expanding there, and that’s benefiting the industrial market. It’s not any one factor; it’s just a rebounding of the local economy.”

Kaseff also noted that the interest rate environment, though higher than it once was, still favors acquisitions. “It’s still a good time to get cheap fixed-rate debt for this kind of deal,” he said. “If you can find a well-located property like this one, there’s no reason to wait.”

Recent numbers bear out an optimistic assessment of the local market. According to CB Richard Ellis stats, for instance, the area’s third-quarter industrial vacancy rate now stands at 5.4 percent, down considerably from the third quarter of 2004, when it was 8.7 percent.

What’s more, Cushman & Wakefield reports that as the end of the third quarter 2005, there had been about 2.8 million square feet of industrial leasing year-to-date. Spec industrial construction is picking up as well, according to the company, which estimates that by the end of this year roughly 1 million square feet of speculative space will be under way in the market.

Chicago-based First Industrial Realty Trust sold the property, which totals about 103,000 square feet and is currently fully leased. It sold for about $6.6 million.