Fiera funds buy 5 Brantford industrial buildings for $118M

In a push to acquire prime industrial properties in and around Toronto, Fiera Real Estate is the latest to add to its holdings. They have invested approximately $118 million to acquire five industrial buildings comprising about 940,000 square feet of space in Brantford.

“We’re happy to get a transaction of this scale, particularly on the industrial side,” Fiera’s William Secnik told RENX in an interview. “As you can imagine, it’s been a very hot commodity especially these days.”

The buildings range in size from about 12,000 square feet to a newly constructed 530,000-square-foot, one-tenant distribution property. All were purchased from Brantford developer and property manager Vicano Construction.

“We’re obviously interested in almost any industrial in the GTA or peripheral, basically anything within a 100-kilometre radius of Toronto, so this fits the bill,” said Secnik, who is Fiera’s senior vice-president and manager of its Fiera Real Estate Core Fund.

“It certainly had the characteristics of newer-quality, great proximity, good access to labour, growing residential base and we felt there is a lot of spillover effect that would be positive in terms of the growth of rents in this market.”

The Fiera Real Estate Core Fund acquired properties at 15 Kraemers Way, 10 Abbott Court and 333 Henry St., comprising about 910,000 square feet. The Fiera Real Estate Industrial Fund acquired the other two assets, smaller properties totaling about 30,000 square feet at 60 Bury and 36 Cornell Streets.