Stonelake Capital Partners acquired Apex Commerce Center, a three-building Class A industrial portfolio in Raleigh, for $90 million.

Located at 2061 Production Drive, 2170 Production Drive, and 600 Pristine Water Drive, the Apex Commerce Center totals 613,353 square feet across three (3) buildings.

Following construction completion in April 2026, Stonelake closed the purchase. The transaction, brokered by Dave Andrews of Jones Lang LaSalle, was executed as a “forward sale”, with Stonelake going under contract during construction in 2025 and retaining leasing rights through the final phase of development. Stonelake’s Josh Lowe oversaw the construction completion of the Apex Commerce Center while Stonelake had the portfolio under contract.

The Apex Commerce Center was jointly developed by Oppidan Investment Company and Rockpoint Group.

Stonelake presently owns 22.5 million square feet of industrial assets across 230+ buildings in 14 Sunbelt markets, with an average building size of approximately 95,000 square feet.

The Kroger Co. is pulling back from developing a network of automated e-commerce fulfillment centers and will instead focus on expanding its brick-and-mortar grocery store network.  

The grocery chain announced it would close three of its eight robotics-powered fulfillment centers. The centers marked for closure are in Groveland, Florida, Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, and Frederick, Maryland. 

The company has also scrapped plans for another fulfillment center in Charlotte but will still build a previously planned fulfillment center in Phoenix.

With the announcement, the Cincinatti-based grocer admitted that its pandemic-era gambit to invest in robotics-focused warehouses to expand its market reach was dragging its e-commerce earnings into the red and creating significant headwinds for its bottom line.

“We haven’t allocated enough capital to growing stores because we have allocated a lot of capital in other areas like fulfillment centers,” Kroger Chairman and interim CEO Ronald Sargent said on an earnings call Thursday. 

The company anticipates taking a write-down of approximately $2.6B in 2026 because of the closures. As part of that, Kroger will make a one-time payment of $350M to UK-based robotics company Ocado, which built the robotic fulfillment systems.

Sargent said Kroger plans to open 14 new grocery stores in the fourth quarter and increase new-store builds by 30% throughout 2026. In June, the chain said it will actualize a net loss of 30 stores over 18 months as it closes 60 underperforming locations but opens 30 new ones, according to Food Business News.

GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders characterized Kroger’s push to focus on automated customer fulfillment centers as a “misadventure” undertaken during the tenure of former CEO Rodney McMullen, who resigned in March after an internal investigation into his conduct.

While the automated warehouses drove down the cost of picking and packing groceries for online orders, Kroger wasn’t able to deliver the groceries at the scale needed to offset the additional shipping costs of servicing a farther-flung network, McMullen said, according to CoStar. 

Kroger said it will now deepen its relationship with the third-party grocery delivery services Instacart, DoorDash and Uber Eats instead.

Since the announcement and earnings call, Kroger’s stock price has lost some 6% of its value, hovering near a six-month low of $63.31 in midday trading Friday.

GA Group and A&G Real Estate Partners plan to auction 790 retail store leases and five distribution centers in conjunction with the wind-down of fabric and crafts retailer Joann Inc. following its January filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The bid deadline is April 16 and the auction is expected to occur in New York on April 22.

The available leases cover a range of property types across 49 states, including freestanding stores, power centers, strip malls and urban retail corridors, ranging from 7,500 to 52,000 square feet. No fee-owned properties are available in the auction.

“This diverse portfolio offers strong real estate fundamentals, prime high-traffic locations, and turnkey spaces ready for immediate occupancy,” said Michael Jerbich of GA Group. “This auction offers business owners and investors a prime opportunity to expand their footprint and strengthen their local presence.”

GA Group was recognized in February as the successful bidder to serve as exclusive agent to monetize substantially all Joann’s assets.

Crescent Communities and GTIS Partners are working together on an industrial project planned in Huntersville. The local planning board is recommending approval of a rezoning request that would allow the duo to build 450,000 square feet of industrial space at 12705 Commerce Station Drive, which is called Axial Commerce Station. The buildings are slated to be 316,250 square feet and 136,5000 square feet. Crescent is hoping to start by the end of this year. The buildings will be delivered in late 2026.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports the developer said the total investment in the project would exceed $50 million. Crescent estimates that once the buildings are completed, the project will create over 250 jobs.

New York-based real estate investment firm GTIS also has several projects in the Charlotte area. The firm announced plans for a $27 million industrial project in Gaston County.

Cannon Commercial obtained $60 million in financing to acquire a 2 million-square-foot industrial portfolio comprising two buildings, one each in Jacksonville, Fla., and Hammond, La. The properties are both fully leased to regional grocery chain Winn-Dixie. JLL secured the 10-year, fixed-rate CMBS loan.

The Jacksonville location is 12 miles from Jacksonville International Airport in the Riverside submarket, while the Hammond site is between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La. Both assets are considered mission-critical distribution centers for Winn-Dixie, a subsidiary of Southeastern Grocers, which is owned by ALDI.

JLL’s Jeff Sause facilitated the deal along with Joshua Blank. Sause said Winn-Dixie’s long-term occupancy and the assets’ locations in growing Southeast markets made this deal attractive to lenders.

Cannon TTM is an arm of Cannon Commercial, a private real estate investor. The firm recently acquired Wilshire Rodeo Plaza in Beverly Hills, Calif., from Nuveen for $211 million.

Register Today to “Be in the Room” when Michael Brennan receives Connect CRE’s Lifetime Achievement Award and will participate in the Keynote Interview with Kevin Brennan, also of Brennan Investment Group. Join us at Connect Industrial Midwest 2025 on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 5, at Joe’s Live in Rosemont, IL, for this exclusive presentation! 

JW Mitchell sold an Atlanta-area warehouse and one from Memphis. CBRE facilitated the sale along with $69.9 million in acquisition financing for the two-building portfolio, which totals over 1.6 million square feet.

Frank Fallon led a CBRE team representing the seller, and Brian Linnihan headed a group that secured the loan from Wells Fargo on behalf of the buyer., 

The portfolio’s facilities include:

• A 613,440-square-foot cross-dock warehouse located in Braselton, Ga. The facility was built in 2016 and is 100% occupied by a large e-commerce provider.
• A 1,013,500-square-foot cross-dock warehouse in Memphis, TN, was built in 2021 and is 100% occupied by Medtronic, a global healthcare technology company.

The Atlanta warehouse is in the Northeast/I-85 industrial submarket, which, according to CBRE Research, saw 2.1 million square feet of net absorption in Q4.

Register Today to “Be in the Room” when Michael Brennan receives Connect CRE’s Lifetime Achievement Award and will participate in the Keynote Interview with Kevin Brennan, also of Brennan Investment Group. Join us at Connect Industrial Midwest 2025 on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 5, at Joe’s Live in Rosemont, IL, for this exclusive presentation! 

Cofe Properties purchased the Charleston Infill Portfolio for $48.25 million. Combined, the two warehouse portfolio totals 307,492 square feet. Nuveen provided a 5-year fixed-rate, full-term interest only loan of $28.95 million. CBRE arranged the loan for the acquisition. The team was made up of Brian Linnihan, Mike Ryan, Richard Henry, and JP Cordeiro with CBRE Capital Markets’ Debt & Structured Finance.

The portfolio comprises two, Class A front-load industrial facilities that are 100% leased:

• 4275 Arco Lane is a 60,640-square foot facility built in 1995. The property is leased to seven tenants, including Carrier Enterprises and Perfect 10 Distribution.
• 4750-4760 Goer Drive is a 246,852 square foot facility built in 1979. The property is leased to 11 tenants, including the College of Charleston and Beers Millwork 

Situated in the North Charleston submarket within I-526, the facilities provide direct access to I-26, US 52, and the Charleston International Airport.

Rockpoint and Oppidan Investment Co. have sold the 233,818-square-foot Building I at their $100 million Apex Commerce Center, a four-building industrial property in Apex, N.C. LaSalle Investment Management acquired the Class A asset.

Commercial Edge reports the duo broke ground on the 847,171-square-foot park in 2022. Building I came online one year later. Apex Commerce Center’s other three facilities are slated for occupancy between July and September 2025.

The rear-load Building I features 32-foot clear heights, 60-foot speed bays and 180-foot truck courts. Two drive-in doors are available, as well as 12 dock-high doors with the option of adding an extra 37. Located at 1251 Burma Drive, the facility is about 6 miles from North Carolina Route 540, which is currently undergoing an expansion meant to extend the thoroughfare, looping around the Greater Raleigh area. The Research Triangle Park and the Raleigh-Durham International Airport are roughly 21 miles north.

JLL Dave Andrews and Pete Pittroff led the team representing Rockpoint in the transaction.

Strategic Capital Partners (SCP) has sold two buildings at its 77 Beltway industrial park in Huntersville. Cabot Properties paid $105.5 million for the properties, which totaled 821,000 square feet. The buildings sold to Cabot are 505,513 and 315,896 square feet.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports that SCP still has land holdings at 77 Beltway and plans to develop a third building there. The building will likely be around 200,000 square feet, and SCP hopes to start construction next year.

Colliers International’s Rob Speir, Lawrence Shaw, and Justin Smith are leading leasing efforts for 77 Beltway on behalf of Cabot. Carroll Daniel Construction was the general contractor for the project. JLL represented Strategic Capital Partners on the capital markets side of the project.

SCP has been active in the Charlotte market in recent years. The developer is also behind Rock Hill Commerce Center in York County. In early 2023, SCP sold the first phase of that project for $93.25 million.

CBRE has arranged two loans worth $66 million to refinance two separate industrial portfolios in the Charlotte, North Carolina, metropolitan area. 

Brian Linnihan led CBRE Capital Markets’ Debt & Structured Finance in Atlanta, which represented CIP Real Estate in both deals. A $35 million loan was secured through HIMCO, while a $31 million loan was secured through a national bank. 

The larger of the two loans was secured for the refinancing of International Corporate Center, a six-building industrial project located in Concord, North Carolina and the construction of two industrial buildings totaling 147,467 square feet. Located near the intersection of International and Corporate drives, International Corporate Center totals 200,831 square feet (not including new development), is home to 12 tenants, and was 92% leased at the time of the loan funding. 

The $31 million loan was secured for the acquisition of a seven-building, 334,989-square-foot industrial portfolio also in the Charlotte metropolitan area. Three different industrial developments comprised the portfolio, which was 99% leased to 12 tenants.