WILMINGTON — A family-run real estate acquisition company found recent success in the Cape Fear market. Treeline announced its first signed lease at an industrial park it bought last month.
Located on U.S. Highway 421, it joins Edgewater Ventures, Ramm Capital, CIL Capital LLC also recently announcing investments or expansion in regional industrial development.
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Having heard about “explosive growth” in Wilmington, Treeline’s management team decided to look into an expansion after investing in the northeast commercial real estate business for 37 years.
“So many people from up north are moving there full-time,” Treeline chief business development officer Daniel Schor said. “We looked at statistics and the largest influx to Wilmington is from New York.”
Last month, Treeline purchased the 80-acre industrial site at 2830 U.S. Highway 421 from OmniSource LLC. Treeline plans to invest $18 million into redevelopment and future growth.
Wilmington-based Burgess Corporation has been hired to handle the construction. The company will rehabilitate an existing 115,000-square-foot building and add to its footprint several new industrial structures.
Renovation work and needed demolition is set to begin within 30 days, Schor confirmed.
“We have a tenant committed, so we are moving forward to get them in quickly,” he added.
The lessee is a national distributor whose name has not yet been disclosed. It will occupy 36,000 square feet of the existing facility, still leaving room for other companies.
Treeline will then construct additional buildings in “some successive order,” but as of now is unsure the number it will be able to accommodate. Many interested parties want a custom build-out, Schor said, and those will take precedence. Other tenants can fill in as space remains available.
Schor explained the industrial park will be a Class A facility and appeal to a variety of companies due to its proximity to major highways and the ports.
The recent acquisition adds to Treeline’s local portfolio, which includes two other properties closed on in fall 2021. Both are located a mile away from Treeline Industrial Park.
Three tenants currently lease out space at the neighboring properties. South-Tek Systems occupies the 66,000-square-foot building, which has been upgraded by Treeline. The company also worked with Burgess to build a new 44,000-square-foot facility, now home to Mid Atlantic Roofing and Aprinnova Inc., a cosmetic company out of California.
Treeline launched in New York as a family-run business in 1985, so the bulk of its business is in New York City, as well as downtown Brooklyn and surrounding suburbs.
It currently owns and manages 6 million square feet of assets.
The company is expanding further into the Carolinas. It currently has a contract to acquire two industrial development sites in South Carolina as well.
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