Global real estate investor Thor Equities LLC is introducing a business that would invest $900 million in the acquisition and development of logistics facilities, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The shift to logistics properties from brick-and-mortar stores has been on Thor CEO Joe Sitt's radar for years, the publication noted, citing the executive. There is an increasingly "voracious appetite" for logistics space from the same companies that were previously interested in high-street retail shops, the publication quoted Sitt as saying.
The new business, called ThorLogis, already has two properties in the works. One of the properties is a waterfront land plot in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., which Thor acquired for $40 million in 2005. The other is a new 430,000-square-foot facility in Amsterdam that will be leased by Dutch flower company Bakker.Com BV, according to the publication.
Thor plans to begin construction on a 700,000-square-foot warehouse on the Red Hook site early in 2020 and expects to have it open midway through 2021. Two major e-commerce companies have already expressed interest in the Red Hook space, Sitt told the Journal without disclosing whether leases have been signed.
