Valor Real Estate Partners has acquired a 54,000 sq ft three-unit urban logistics estate in Crawley, adjacent to Gatwick Airport, for £15 million, from a fund managed by State Street.
The highly functional, low site-cover 31,000 sq ft, 12,200 sq ft and 11,700 sq ft units are occupied by UPS, the global 3PL, car dealership Hendy Group and FTSE-listed equipment tool and hire company HSS Hire Service Group, respectively.
The urban logistics estate represents Valor’s fourth acquisition in what is the dominant industrial submarket south of the M25, on the edge of the Greater London Green Belt, with 2.6 million people accessible within a 60-minute drive time.
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Crawley benefits from its strategic location six minutes’ drive from Gatwick Airport and nine minutes’ drive from the M23. The submarket is characterised by a chronic demand supply imbalance, primarily driven by the conversion of industrial land to higher value uses. This has underpinned strong rental growth and record low vacancy rates, with constrained regional supply and a limited development pipeline forecast to maintain this trend. Following this transaction, Valor now owns more than 200,000 sq ft of warehouse space in Crawley, across four properties, occupied by a mix of global and domestic businesses.
This acquisition takes Valor’s portfolio to more than 85 assets totalling over six million sq ft of urban logistics, primarily located in London and Paris, which is well positioned to benefit from the acceleration of ecommerce and urbanisation.
“This off-market transaction is another strong addition to our portfolio, in what is one of the prime industrial hubs of South London and where we now have a significant footprint. The estate appeals to a wide range of occupiers, as evidenced by the current tenant base, and the low site cover offered will continue to drive occupational interest in the long-term, as last-mile operators in particular seek increasing amounts of yard space at their warehouse facilities,” said Jeremy Achkar, UK transactions lead at Valor.