Birmingham Business Journal: Provender Partners investing $9M for Birmingham renovation, eyes potential new development
A California investor in food-related industrial buildings is making a big investment in its new property in Birmingham.
Provender Partners is investing $9.1 million in a renovation project at 400 Industrial Drive, Unit 1, after acquiring the property for $20.2 million last month.
Design-build construction company Primus Builders, which is based in Woodstock, Georgia, is the general contractor on the project.
The building includes 230,000 square feet of cooler space and 185,000 square feet of freezer space.
Provender Partners is also looking into developing about 20 acres of vacant land on the site for additional cold storage space, Neil Johnson, founder and CEO of Provender Partners, told the Birmingham Business Journal.
“Since inception, Provender has renovated over twenty buildings across the U.S.,” Johnson said. “400 Industrial Drive presents a unique opportunity to put our experts to work in renovating this sizable building. The end product will be a fully renovated, highly functional building available for occupancy in early 2022.”
Industrial real estate, including cold storage for food, has become a hot commodity with the rise of ecommerce, and the demand has skyrocketed thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Birmingham’s industrial scene saw an unprecedented boom in build-to-suit projects last year with major inventory-related companies signing deals for large facilities in Bessemer and elsewhere.