WHITESTOWN, Ind. β JLL Income Property Trust has paid roughly $137 million for a 1.1 million-square-foot industrial distribution facility here that is fully leased to Subaru of America Inc., marking one of the largest single-property commercial real estate sales in the Indianapolis area this year.
The Chicago-based, non-traded real estate investment trust acquired the property, known as Whitestown Distribution Center IV and also marketed as Subaru at Park 267, from a joint venture between San Francisco-based industrial REIT Prologis Inc. and Indianapolis developer Browning, according to JLL’s own announcement of the deal. JLL Capital Markets represented the sellers in the transaction, which closed July 30, according to Inside INdiana Business, which first reported the sale price locally.
The building sits on nearly 70 acres at 5190 S. State Road 267 in Whitestown, a Boone County suburb roughly 20 miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis. Completed in 2024 and certified LEED Silver, the Class A cross-dock facility features 40-foot clear heights, 108 dock-high doors, four grade-level doors, hydraulic dock levelers, LED lighting and truck courts ranging from 135 to 185 feet deep. Parking is built out for 342 cars, expandable to 474, alongside 100 trailer stalls that can grow to 240.
Subaru occupies the entire building under a long-term lease and uses it as the largest of its nine distribution facilities in North America, according to JLL. The site functions as Subaru’s primary redistribution hub, feeding eight regional centers nationwide, and sits about 39 miles south of the automaker’s vehicle manufacturing plant in Lafayette, Ind. Neither JLL nor JLL Income Property Trust disclosed the length of the lease term or a capitalization rate for the deal.
The JLL Capital Markets team that arranged the sale was led by Senior Managing Director John Huguenard, Managing Director Ed Halaburt, Senior Director Ross Bratcher and Associate Cameron Chandra.
“Whitestown IV is an attractive addition to our industrial portfolio,” Allan Swaringen, president and chief executive of JLL Income Property Trust, said in the announcement. “The Indianapolis region is a great example of a target market as a central distribution hub with access to interstate transportation systems and supply constraints for large institutional-quality distribution facilities.”
The purchase extends a buying streak in the same submarket for JLL Income Property Trust, which acquired the nearby 605,000-square-foot Whitestown Distribution Center III for about $60 million in April, according to Inside INdiana Business. Industrial assets now make up 38% of the REIT’s $6.9 billion portfolio as of June 30.
What it means: The deal underscores continued institutional demand for large, single-tenant logistics buildings along the Interstate 65 corridor northwest of Indianapolis, a submarket that has drawn developers and investors for its access to I-65 and I-74, proximity to Indianapolis International Airport’s cargo operations, and a labor pool of more than 98,000 workers within a 10-mile radius. Through April, Indianapolis-area industrial properties recorded $275 million in sales volume across 18 transactions totaling 3.2 million square feet, according to data cited by Inside INdiana Business. The metro’s industrial vacancy rate stood at 7.5%, well below the 9.1% national average, while in-place rents averaged $5.46 per square foot, up 4.8% over the prior 12 months β a combination of tight supply and steady rent growth that continues to draw capital from REITs and other institutional buyers into new-vintage, build-to-suit distribution product. It’s a dynamic playing out in other markets too, from a $135 million mixed-use redevelopment breaking ground in Arlington, Texas to continued institutional capital flows into Indiana real estate more broadly, including a recently financed retirement community near Purdue University in West Lafayette.
