The past year saw record-breaking sales for Delaware commercial real estate, lead by sky-high valuations on warehouses leased by e-commerce giant Amazon. This year’s top sale of Amazon’s Boxwood Road facility was nearly five times larger than the biggest sale of 2021, Barclays’ $83 million purchase of Christina Crescent in the Riverfront. Although the four Amazon warehouses top the annual list, multi-family properties make up the rest of the Top 10, showing the market’s asset strength.
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Macquarie Core Real Estate has acquired the Amazon MTN1 plant in Newport. | PHOTO COURTESY OF MACQUARIE[/caption]
1. Amazon MTN1, $392M
Buyer: Macquarie Asset Management
Address: 1025 Boxwood Road, Wilmington
This February sale of Delaware’s largest building, a 3.8 million-square-foot Amazon distribution center, turned out to be a new state commercial real estate record. Developer Dermody Properties sold the property to Australia-based real estate investment firm Macquarie Asset Management in its biggest U.S. acquisition to date. The sale put Delaware on the map for industrial assets and undoubtedly help drive new attention to the strength of existing and potential assets here.
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More than 1,000 people are already working at the new ILG1 fulfillment center in Bear. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
2. Amazon ILG1, $246M
Buyer: PR-Stoltz Propco Blue Diamond
Address: 820 Federal School Lane, New Castle
About a year after opening, the Amazon warehouse facility in Blue Diamond Park off U.S. Route 13 has been sold to investors for $246 million, marking the second-largest commercial real estate sale in the state history behind MTN1. Built by Stoltz Real Estate Partners, based in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., in 2021, the more than 1.3 million-square-foot warehouse is the first phase of a multi-phase development of the former Greggo & Ferrara borrow pit and former amusement park located on more than 100 acres between Hamburg Road and Federal School Lane in the Bear area. The Stoltz firm sold the Blue Diamond Amazon facility to PR-Stoltz Propco Blue Diamond Lot 1 LLC, an entity that falls under its investor portfolio, on Nov. 22.
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Amazon will hire 150 new workers in Delaware to handle the rush of coronavirus-spurred orders, officials said. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
Amazon PHL7, $118M
Buyer: American RE Partners / MIG
Address: 560 Merrimac Ave., Middletown
The Amazon fulfillment center in Middletown, the e-commerce giant’s first major center in Delaware, traded between investment firms for $118 million in July. The fulfillment center known within Amazon as PHL7 located at 560 Merrimac Ave. was sold by Los Angeles-based investment firm Circle Industrial to a joint venture by Virginia-based American Real Estate Partners and New York-based investment firm Machine Investment Group (MIG).
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DGI3 Amazon delivery center in Newport is one of the company's largest in the greater Philadelphia region. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
Amazon DGI3, $97M
Buyer: AXA Investment Managers
Address: 851 Boxwood Road, Wilmington
Just a few weeks after its showcase Boxwood sortation center sold for a state record sum, Dermody Properties sold its smaller, neighboring Amazon delivery center. The 220,000-square-foot delivery center, known to Amazon as DGI3, opened in September 2021 in tandem with its larger companion facility and employs more than 300 people who work to prepare 50,000 packages daily to pack into the vans that make deliveries to customers’ doorsteps.
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A New York private equity fund recently bought the One Easton apartments in Newark for an eye-popping $335,000 per unit. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
One Easton, $73.7M
Buyer: KKR
Address: 1 Easton Court, Newark
KKR, a major New York-based private equity firm, acquired the 220-unit One Easton apartments, one of the largest off-campus apartment complexes for the University of Delaware located in the Newark Shopping Center off East Main Street, in April. The seller was Pinecrest, a Chicago-based real estate investment and development firm that built the complex in a joint venture with Florida-based apartment developer The Bainbridge Companies in 2016. The per unit sale of more than $335,000 likely smashed the previous record sale in Delaware on a per unit basis.
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Oakmark Management recently acquired the Foxwood apartments in Pike Creek for one of the largest sums in recent years. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
Foxwood Apartments, $73.6M
Buyer: Oakmark Management
Address: 15 Fox Hall, Newark
New Jersey-based real estate investment firm Oakmark Management acquired the 414-unit Foxwood Apartments in February, marking one of the state’s largest multifamily sales of the last decade, albeit smaller on a per unit basis. It is the third multifamily investment in Delaware for Oakmark in the last two years.
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Montium, a fast-growing real estate investment and operating firm, has acquired the Apartments at Pine Brook in Newark for $63 million. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
Pine Brook Apartments, $63M
Buyer: Montium
Address: 1314 Wharton Drive, Newark
New Jersey-based multifamily real estate investment and operating firm Montium has quickly become a major player in the northern Delaware market, especially in the Newark area, after acquiring the Apartments at Pine Brook in September. The addition of Pine Brook, a popular community for University of Delaware students and graduates located off Paper Mill Road, will push Monitum’s First State investment over $210 million.
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A New Jersey-based owner-operator of multi-family communities, has acquired the Colony complexes near Edgemoor for nearly $70 million. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
Colony North, $49.25M
Buyer: Capital Management
Address: 2 Colony Blvd., Wilmington
New Jersey real estate investment firm Capital Management became the latest out-of-state investor to crack the $100 million mark after acquiring more than 700 apartment units in the Edgemoor area. It acquired the original Colony apartment complex in addition to the newer Colony North of East Lea Boulevard in separate deals.
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The global investment firm EQT Exeter recently acquired the Christina Mill apartments in Newark for $49 million. | DBT PHOTO BY JACOB OWENS[/caption]
Christina Mill Apartments, $49M
Buyer: EQT Exeter
Address: 100 Christina Mill Drive, Newark
This 228-unit complex off Elkton Road near the University of Delaware campus was sold by South Carolina-based real estate investment firm Graycliff Capital Partners in a February deal with the newly merged global real estate investment firm, EQT Exeter. The price translated to a per unit price of nearly $215,000 – a potentially record-setting per unit value for a First State multifamily asset until the sale of One Easton.
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The Colonial East manufactured home community near Rehoboth Beach was sold to a Michigan investor. | PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE MAPS[/caption]
Colonial East, $39M
Buyer: RHP Properties
Address: 1 Powder Horn Lane, Rehoboth Beach
Michigan-based RHP Properties acquired three manufactured home neighborhoods in coastal Delaware at the end of April, including this 50-year-old community located off Route 1 near the intersection with John J Williams Highway. The off-market sale was reportedly brokered through a relationship between RHP and Colonial East LP, which also owned the Sussex East and West communities in Lewes.
