LBA Logistics and RXR Realty have received $ 316 million in funding to build Grand Logistics Center, their 1.1 million square foot multi-story distribution project in the Queens community of Maspeth, which is scheduled for delivery in December 2022. Public records show JP Morgan Chase is behind the debt.

Located at 55-15 Grand Ave., the project is approximately 3 miles from the intersection of the Brooklyn-Queens and Long Island freeways, which provides access to Manhattan and the outer borough markets. At the end of June, Amazon signed a full construction lease at the facility. When complete, the four-storey building will feature a clear height of 21 feet, two parking levels and 84 high platform doors.

JLL Managing Directors Kevin MacKenzie and Mike Tepedino, along with Managing Director Brian Torp arranged the financing, while Vice President Robert Kossar and Executive Managing Director Leslie Lanne represented the owner in the lease. At the beginning of September, another JLL team arranged $ 105 million in construction financing for the Bronx Logistics Center, a 1.2 million square foot logistics facility.

New York’s industrial moment

Despite the severe disruption caused by the pandemic and the resulting economic fallout, the New York industrial market recorded positive net absorption in 2020 through the third quarter, at around 700,000 square feet, according to JLL research.

While several metros recorded negative absorption, notably Los Angeles (-7.6 million square feet), the industrial remained, nationally, one of the best performing asset classes. The sector is expected to reach 200 million square feet of positive absorption in 2020, according to JLL data, with Dallas / Fort Worth, the Inland Empire, Columbus and Indianapolis among the most active U.S. markets. Even so, at 2.1 percent vacancy, New York City remains the tightest market in the country.