Jones Development buys value-add industrial facility in Johnson County, KS.
July 29,2019
A subsidiary of Kansas City-based Jones Development Co. has bought a Johnson County industrial facility with plans to update it and secure new tenants.
The 311,100-square-foot facility sits on 17 acres near Interstate 35, northeast of Gardner in New Century AirCenter. Sumner Investment LLC bought the center at Sumner Way and Leawood Drive.
Jones plans updates to the facility, which the company said had a previous tenant, KGP Logistics, for about 40 years and was in need of deferred maintenance. Jones did not disclose the seller or the sale price. The deal closed at the end of May.
Cam Duff, a vice president of investments for Jones, said that the building had been on the market for about 18 months and that the company saw a lot of potential in buying it and adding value to attract tenants. He said the building had good bones and hard-to-find amenities, including outdoor paved storage areas, which businesses like to have for either product or trailer storage; 22- to 26-foot ceiling heights; and a flexible layout that allows for a single or multi-tenant option.
CBRE is listing the property for lease, and Jones seeks tenants needing as little as 100,000 square feet. Chris Jones, the company’s executive vice president for investments, said the purchase fits into Jones Development’s larger value-add strategy.
Jones said the company has been doing small-scale value-add projects since the 1980s but decided to really ramp up this part of the business recently, bringing on Duff, who specializes in value-add properties, in March
Jones said it made sense given the company has skill set and the capacity to do so, and there will always be existing supply on the market.
“It’s something we’ve done quietly, and our goal is to do more of it now,” he said.