LaSalle buys 1.1 million-sf Subaru hub from Prologis-Browning JV

JLL has closed the sale of Subaru at Park 267, a 1,119,056-square-foot distribution center in Whitestown, Indiana, to LaSalle Investment Management. The seller was a joint venture of Prologis and Browning; JLL represented it, and Connect CRE reported the transaction.

Browning's construction division built the warehouse and finished it in 2024. The building is fully leased to Subaru of America and is the largest distribution center in the automaker's nine-facility national network. It sits 38.8 miles south of Subaru's Lafayette manufacturing plant, the company's only production location outside Asia.

The pitch is the tenant. "Prologis and Browning delivered a best-in-class distribution facility that serves as a mission-critical component of the tenant's North American supply chain," said JLL's Ed Halaburt. He added that Indianapolis-area absorption and limited new supply have kept competition sharp for institutional-quality assets with long-term cash flows.

The deal continues a stretch of institutional investors paying up for occupied industrial. CBRE Investment Management paid $135 million for a fully leased Charlotte industrial park. INDUS Realty Trust bought a Houston portfolio that was 99 percent leased. Park 267 is the concentrated version: the entire 1.1 million square feet rests on one tenant's logistics plan.

For LaSalle, the purchase is a straightforward wager: Subaru has to keep parts moving through this building, there is no vacancy to fill, and the surrounding market has little new supply. What happens when Subaru's network maps change is the part the lease doesn't answer.