Liberty (LPT) to Revamp Industrial Site Near O'Hare Airport
Liberty Property Trust LPT declared the acquisition of a five-acre property near the O'Hare International Airport and its plan to redevelop it. The redevelopment will be done in order to meet the high demand for quality industrial properties in the region.
Specifically, the company intends to come up with a 96,962 square foot high-efficiency industrial building, after razing a 60,000 square foot building, that the property at 350 North York Road in Bensenville currently possess. The redevelopment is likely to begin in early 2017 and the company expects the shell completion of the $11.6-million development project by third-quarter 2017.
Notably, the property is likely to experience solid demand for being near to both the north and south O'Hare cargo entrances. The class A building would replace an outmoded trucking facility and offer space required by the modern logistics-related companies around the airport.
With fundamentals of the industrial market remaining strong, backed by growing demand for industrial properties amid an e-commerce boom, supply chain consolidation and limited supply, rent growth is estimated to accelerate. In addition, occupancy is expected to climb, while development and redevelopment opportunities are expected to increase.
Liberty remains well poised to capitalize on this trend, driven by its superior portfolio in strategic locations. In fact, the completion of this above mentioned building would bring the company’s owned properties count to 13 in the O'Hare market, providing a total of 1 million square feet of space. Moreover, there are 48 buildings in its Illinois/Wisconsin portfolio, comprising around 12.25 million square feet of class A industrial and flex space.
Liberty Property currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Year to date, shares of Liberty Property ascended 27.6% against the Zacks categorized REIT and Equity Trust – Other industry’s gain of 4.4%.
Investors interested in the REIT industry can consider stocks like Urban Edge Properties UE, DCT Industrial Trust DCT and Prologis Inc. PLD. Each of these stocks has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
For Urban Edge Properties, the expected growth rate for FFO per share is 37.6% for 2016 and 6.3% for 2017.
DCT Industrial delivered an average positive surprise of 5.18% over the trailing four quarters.
Prologis has exceeded estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, with an average beat of 3.15%.
Note: All EPS numbers presented in this write up represent funds from operations (“FFO”) per share. FFO, a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs, is obtained after adding depreciation and amortization and other non-cash expenses to net income.
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