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Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT II Acquires Two Properties in MA and OH

Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT II Inc., a publicly registered non-traded real estate investment trust sponsored by Griffin Capital Corp., has completed the acquisition of two properties for an aggregate total of $27.4 million.

This first acquisition is a 64,200 square feet, two-story office/research and development building in Andover, Massachusetts, approximately 20 miles northwest of Boston. The property was purchased from R.J. Kelly Company, a Burlington, Massachusetts-based real estate firm, for $11.5 million, plus closing costs, and has a capitalization rate of 6.42 percent.

The property is 100 percent leased through May 2027 to Morpho Detection LLC, a multi-national company specializing in electronic security solutions. Morpho SA, the parent company of Morpho Detection, is the guarantor of the lease, and is one of nine operating divisions of Safran (Euronext:SAF), a French multinational aircraft engine, rocket engine, aerospace-component, and security company. The current annual base rent is $738,300, with 2.75 percent average annual rental increases for the remaining duration of the lease.

Michael Escalante, president of the REIT, said, “This marks the REIT’s first acquisition in the greater Boston market. Due to the close proximity to major highways and primary thoroughfares, the property offers the tenant access to a robust labor pool in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire. With this acquisition, we are further diversifying the REIT within this first-tier [metropolitan statistical area] both from a geographic and industry concentration perspective.”

R.J. Kelly Company was represented by Cushman & Wakefield’s Boston office. The Cushman & Wakefield team, led by president Robert Griffin, vice chairman Edward Maher and executive director Matt Pullen, oversaw the transaction of the newly-renovated property.

The second acquisition is a single-story, Class A distribution facility totaling 312,000 square feet in the Columbus suburb of Groveport, Ohio. The purchase price for the property was $15.9 million, plus closing costs, and has a capitalization rate of approximately 7.04 percent.

The property, which was originally constructed as a build-to-suit in 2015, is 100 percent leased to Exel until July 2022. Exel, a national logistics company, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Deutsche Post DHL, a provider of contract logistics and parent company of DHL, the global firm that specializes in international express, overland transport, and air freight. The current annual base rent is approximately $1.1 million, with 2.02 percent average annual rental increases for the remaining duration of the lease.

Last week, The DI Wire reported that Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT II purchased two properties in New Jersey and Virginia for an aggregate total of $115.7 million.

Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT II, Inc. is a publicly registered non-traded REIT with a portfolio that currently includes 14 buildings totaling approximately 2.4 million rentable square feet and asset value of more than $356 million.