A Houston heavy-hitter is supersizing its industrial outdoor storage investment with a global player.
Triten Real Estate Partners and TPG Angelo Gordon plan to invest $1 billion in the asset class in the next five years, according to a news release.
The joint venture has invested $500 million in industrial outdoor storage across 16 markets since December 2020. It is averaging 18 acquisitions per year and has grown its portfolio to more than 60 properties.
Triten observed that the asset class was “fragmented” in 2017 and set out to assemble a portfolio of properties that would require little capital expenditure but yield profits, said Scott Arnoldy, the firm’s founding partner.
Industrial outdoor storage is “a historically overlooked asset class” that is “now front and center in the rapidly changing industrial landscape,” according to Matthews Real Estate Investment Services. The properties often lack buildings, and their uses include truck terminals and parking, container storage, equipment rental and building material sales.
The average rent per usable acre stood at $6,511 across the Sun Belt in the first quarter, according to Matthews. Texas is among the states with the highest demand for the asset class, along with Florida, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia.
Triten, founded in 2011, was an “early operator in the space,” said Matt Lazar, managing director for TPG Angelo Gordon. Triten holds 3 million square feet of property across the United States, according to its website. It also develops mixed-use, multifamily, office and industrial.
The firm redeveloped a historic warehouse in Houston’s Heights neighborhood, in partnership with Radom Capital, four years ago. That 12-acre project, M-K-T, yielded 200,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and creative office space. Now the partnership is redeveloping another old warehouse nearby, which will add 4.5 acres to the district.
TPG Angelo Gordon resulted from San Francisco-based TPG’s acquisition of New York-based Angelo Gordon, and it specializes in investments such as credit and real estate.