Container storage and moving company 1-800-PACK-RAT LLC has leased 40,000 square feet of warehouse space at 31 Commercial St. in Sharon.
The new tenant brings the property to full occupancy. The remainder of the building is leased to Staples.
Landlord Suffolk Advisors utilized NAI Hunneman brokers Cathy Minnerly, executive vice president, and Ovar Osvold, associate, for lease negotiations. Colliers International represented the tenant in the transaction.
The 31 Commercial St. property is a 104,200-square-foot office and warehouse facility built in 1995. The property sits more than 11 acres, and features 25-foot ceilings.
The space the moving company leased was on the market for the last two years. The trouble was the vacant space was in the back of the building, Osvold told Banker & Tradesman.
"The reason it works well for [the company] is that they have large moving containers that need to be stored off the street, so the excess land at the property accommodates the containers," Osvold said.
While the Commercial Street property sat on the market for a while, two years is small potatoes, geologically speaking, compared to the six and eight years that some industrial properties leased sat vacant before being leased in the last six months. The 378,000-square-foot property at 35 United Drive in West Bridgewater was empty for about eight years until Plantation Products leased it, and until 47 Brands rented 300,000 square feet at 525 Campanelli Drive in Brockton, that space was vacant for six years.
However, it’s been Providence Highway that has proven the hot spot for NAI Hunneman’s industrial team, Osvold opined, and 31 Commercial St. is right off that thoroughfare. In the last six months, Cintas leased 27,000 square feet at 1150 Providence Highway, and IDI Distribution took 33,000 square feet off the market at 1245 Providence Highway.
But it’s not just in Sharon and nearby towns that the industrial market has bounced back, Osvold added. About 1.5 million square feet have been absorbed in the southern Greater Boston industrial market in just the last six months.
