Transwestern Investments buys Chicago industrial building for a separate account

Transwestern Investments has acquired 320 Overland Drive, a 408,176-square-foot industrial building in Chicago's I-88 Corridor, on behalf of a separate account, according to the firm's announcement carried by IREI. The announcement gives no price, no seller and no name for the account's owner — the three facts an outside analyst would need to work out the buyer's basis.

Otherwise the physical facts are complete, and they read like a spec sheet written by the buyer: a 2023 building, fully leased, on 26.79 acres with a cross-dock configuration, 36-foot clear heights, 55 dock doors expandable to 86, four drive-in doors and dedicated car and trailer parking.

"320 Overland Drive represents an opportunity to acquire a modern, highly functional industrial asset in one of Chicago's established distribution corridors," said Andy Norman, director of acquisitions at Transwestern Investments, who tied the buy to the building's functionality, access to a deep labor pool and proximity to transportation infrastructure. The site sits 1.7 miles from Interstate 88, with connectivity the release describes to Interstates 355 and 294, O'Hare International Airport, downtown Chicago and the wider Midwest network.

The corridor's occupancy record arrives courtesy of Transwestern Research: 94 percent occupied now, against an average of roughly 95 percent over the past 15 years. Transwestern Research shares the buyer's name, and the release does not describe the relationship between the two — a stable 15-year average is a useful underwriting input, but it is also a number published by the sponsor's own shop, which is worth remembering when it shows up in a later pitch deck.

Property management goes to Transwestern Services, retained on the asset, a small line that keeps the operating fee inside the organization along with whatever acquisition and asset-management economics the separate account carries. On a single-asset mandate that matters more than it would inside a commingled fund, because there is no pool of other properties to spread the cost across and one client bears the whole load.

Whether the account adds a second building in the corridor is the thing to watch; nothing in the release says either way. The release does provide a starting point for the underwriting: a three-year-old box, fully leased, in a corridor near its long-run occupancy average, with 31 dock positions already permitted but unbuilt. The price, when it surfaces, is the number that will tell you how the market priced the difference between what the building does now and what it could do.