Trendy Warehouse District In WPB Fetches $18.5M In Sale
In an off-market deal just before the holidays, The Warehouse District, an assemblage of 85K SF that includes trendy restaurants, creative businesses and fitness companies, changed hands.
Holliday Fenoglio Fowler brokered the deal on both sides. Johnstone Capital Partners, a private Palm Beach-based firm, sold the district to Asana Partners, a retail investment company active in 15 U.S. cities. The deal was for $18.5M, the South Florida Business Journal reports.
The Warehouse District is made up of six buildings built between 1925 and 1968. Chris Vila — son of 1980s home improvement TV guru Bob Vila — last year helped establish a food hall called Grandview Public Market in 14K SF on the site. It opened in February. The district includes a craft brewery, a distillery, the Palm Beach Squash Club, coworking space, a surf shop and more.
The HFF team that brokered the deal included Director Eric Williams, Executive Managing Director Manny de Zárraga, Senior Managing Director and co-head of HFF’s retail practice Daniel Finkle and Managing Director Luis Castillo.
They gave credit to Johnstone, the Palm Beach firm owned by E. Hunter Beebe, which renovated the property, keeping vintage touches like a 700-foot stretch of old railroad line that was converted into a pedestrian path.
"[Johnstone] did a tremendous job,” Williams said in a statement. “Under the project leadership of Vice President William Earl, they have transformed a collection of previously underutilized industrial buildings into a cool, modern community that is the first of its kind in West Palm Beach. West Palm Beach is one of the fastest-growing cities in South Florida, and the emergence of The Warehouse District is a testament to the continued evolution of West Palm Beach into a thriving, 18-hour city.”
