Big Parcel, Big Building Overcome Big Taxes | Interline chooses Auburn as site for new distribution facility
Photo/Matthew L. Brown
Rabina Properties, a New York-based real estate company, built this 210,000-square-foot warehouse at 26 Millbury St. in Auburn for Interline Brands.
As always in real estate, location is king. And a warehouse and distribution property in Auburn illustrates that adage very clearly.
Auburn, one of few towns to enforce separate tax rates for residential and commercial properties, sports a commercial tax rate of $21.83 per $1,000 of assessed value, one of the highest in the region and about twice the town’s residential rate of $10.91.
But according to commercial real estate brokers, the commercial tax rate is for the owners of small commercial properties to whine about. Neither they nor their small tenants can reap the rewards of what is perhaps Auburn’s greatest advantage: it’s location.
Rabina Properties can. The Scarsdale, N.Y.-based realty and property management company recently finished a 210,000-square-foot built-to-suit warehouse and distribution facility at 26 Millbury Street for tenant Interline Brands Inc.
According to brokers Jim Umphrey and Don Mancini of Worcester commercial real estate firm Kelleher & Sadowsky Associates Inc., the site was too good for Rabina to pass up. It’s a dead-flat, 12-acre former soccer field complex mere feet from Route 20 in one direction and Interstates 90 and 290 in the other.
Terms Of Endearment
Rabina paid $18.5 million for the property in the first quarter, according to county land records. Rabina also owns the massive, 436,932-square-foot Filenes Basement warehouse at 28 Millbury, which it bought separately for $20 million.
In March, Interline, a facilities supply distributor with connections to Worcester, signed a 10-year lease for 163,000 square feet of the 210,000-square-foot building. After taking occupancy in May, the company decided it wanted the remaining 47,000 square feet and is still hiring.
“It’s one of the biggest industrial leases in the Worcester area in quite some time, and probably the biggest built-to-suit,” Umphrey said.
Interline Brands was created when three companies, Wilmar, Sexauer and Barnett, which started as Barnett Brass and Copper on Ballard Street in Worcester, merged. Each company managed different catalog brands marketing maintenance, repair, and operations products to many different types of customers.
Barnett’s business is in plumbing, electrical, HVAC and janitorial supplies. The Millbury Street facility does have a small showroom where retail customers can shop, but the company’s main business is distribution to municipalities, schools and other organizations that use a wide range of products.
When Interline wanted to relocate Barnett’s Worcester operation, “the search went anywhere in Worcester county, an area they had business in already,” Umphrey said. “Auburn had great highway access, it’s central to every major market and they needed build-to suit.”
The result was “as nice of a warehouse building you’ll find even going up and down (Interstate) 495,” he said.
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