Rye Brook firm makes $57M investment in Memphis

Rye Brook real estate investment and management firm LRC Properties has purchased a portfolio of three industrial buildings in Memphis totaling 1,115,269 square feet for $57 million. It is LRC’s second major Memphis acquisition, following the December purchase of that city’s 640,000-square-foot Technicolor building.

The latest acquisition was completed via a joint venture with funds managed by Miami-based Rialto Capital Management LLC.

LRC”™s principal Karie Nero said, “We view Memphis as a key market, one that is improving with a solid infrastructure that will see continued improvement and rent growth.”

Nero added that the firm is “continuing to explore additional properties to purchase and manage in the Memphis market.”

LRC Properties owns approximately 6 million square feet of commercial properties in the Southeast with assets under management of more than $560 billion.

The company”™s other industrial purchases in the last seven months include a 288,860-square-foot property in Nashville and a 469,830-square-foot property in Jacksonville.

When interviewed by the Business Journal after the Technicolor purchase, Nero said that from its earliest days in 2009 the company has been focused on the Southeast.

“We wanted to identify growing markets,” she said. “We focused on demographics, population growth, job growth, logistics. We focused on port cities and it became very clear that there are a lot of barriers to entry in the Northeast and the pricing was the biggest barrier to entry.

“We were able to get our properties at a good basis and below replacement cost,” she continued. “We”™ve always continued along that path. We continually evaluate our markets and we continually find that we can find more value and opportunity in the Southeast so that is where we have focused our strategy.”

In addition to its Rye Brook headquarters, LRC has offices in Durham and Charlotte, North Carolina.