Seven former Kenco warehouses were sold last month for more than $67 million in the biggest property sale in Hamilton County in 2022.
Nashville-based Northstar Real Estate Advisors and its affiliated companies bought the warehouse and industrial properties from JDK Real Estate, the real estate company owned by the Kennedy family that also owns the Chattanooga-based warehousing company Kenco, according to county property records.
Northstar President Randy Wolcott said the warehouses are fully occupied, including several still used by Kenco, and his firm is interested in buying more industrial sites in what he said is a strong and growing market in Chattanooga.
“It is a vibrant market with a very low vacancy rate, and it is very business friendly,” Wolcott said in a telephone interview last week. “It is a very attractive market for us, and we hope to make other acquisitions in the future.”
Wolcott, who has worked in industrial real estate since 1986, said his firm began buying into the Chattanooga market in 2016. Prior to the year-end purchase of the Kenco warehouses, Wolcott said his firm had bought a half dozen industrial warehouses in Chattanooga and other warehouses nearby in Ringgold and Dalton, Georgia. With the purchase of nearly 1.3 million square feet of warehouse space from Kenco, Northstar has expanded its Chattanooga holdings to nearly 2 million square feet.