A Northeast Philadelphia distribution center occupied by TJX Cos. has been acquired by a Spanish billionaire for $148.1 million, a 53% increase over what the property traded for three years ago.
Phoenix-based VeREIT sold the 1.015-million-square-foot building at 2760 Red Lion Road to Ponte Gadea Compass LLC, property records show. The latter is a Miami investment firm led by Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega. Ortega has a net worth of $44.1 billion and is the third wealthiest person in Europe and the 25th in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Ortega founded Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer and parent company of fashion brand Zara.
Built in 2001, the distribution center has always been leased to TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods. The Massachusetts-based retailer signed a 20-year lease in 2001, which was the largest industrial lease in the city involving a private company in more than three decades. VeREIT bought the building for $97 million in 2019, and TJX extended its lease for another 20 years.
VeREIT was acquired by San Diego-based Realty Income Corp. (NYSE: O) in a deal that closed last November.
The Red Lion Road deal is another example of real estate investors taking notice of Northeast Philadelphia’s hot industrial market, comprised of both large and small warehouses. New York-based DH Property Holdings, for example, recently completed a 282,737-square-foot build-to-suit distribution at at 9801 Blue Grass Road that will also be occupied by TJX (NYSE: TJX). The building is just steps from the Red Lion Road distribution center.
Ortega’s real estate portfolio rose to close $16 billion in 2021. Ponte Gadea Compass is the U.S. investment arm that Ortega, 86, uses to buy and sell commercial properties. In the past year, the Spanish billionaire has gone on a real estate deal spree, according to Bloomberg, spending almost $2 billion on real estate properties around the globe. Ortega, for example, bought a New York apartment building for $500 million in July.
He bought Amazon’s Troy Block in Seattle for $740 million in 2018 and a Miami skyscraper that was the largest office building in Florida at the time for $517 million in 2016.
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