EQT buys Phoenix warehouse in region’s largest sale this year

Article originally posted on CoStar on June 16, 2025

Investment firm EQT Real Estate acquired a Phoenix distribution center from Blackstone in the region’s largest industrial deal of the past year, at a time when high construction levels have raised industrial vacancy in one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions.

Radnor, Pennsylvania-based EQT acquired Sarival Logistics Center, spanning more than 1.1 million square feet, for $128.2 million from New York-based Blackstone, according to public filings and brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, which represented the seller.

The property, built in 2022, is fully leased by transportation services provider Logistics Plus at 6390 N. Sarival Ave. in Litchfield Park near Glendale, Arizona, about 25 miles west of Phoenix. Cushman Executive Vice Chair Andy Markham said prospective buyers were attracted by the property’s location in “one of the most active logistics corridors in the Southwest,” near the busy Loop 303 freeway.

EQT, a real estate investment trust, “is picking up a strong, stabilized facility that’s set up for long-term success,” Markham said in a statement. He said there is high demand in western suburbs among national and regional firms looking to serve the Phoenix region’s growing residential and business base.

The latest Census Bureau data showed the Phoenix region’s population grew by 311,300 between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2024. The 6.4% population increase was the 10^th highest by percentage among U.S. metro regions with at least 1 million people and well above the national growth rate of 2.6%.

But fast growth also spurred an explosion of new industrial construction over the past few years, causing vacancy to rise to its current 12.8% and annual rent growth to slow to 2.3%, according to the latest CoStar market data.

Builders delivered an unprecedented 27.4 million square feet of net new industrial space over the past 12 months to the Phoenix region. “For comparison, Phoenix averaged 8 million square feet of annual net deliveries in the three years leading up to the onset of the pandemic,” Connor Devereux, director of market analytics for CoStar Group in Phoenix, said in a recent report.

Still, industrial leasing volume modestly accelerated over the past year and is 33% above the average annual level from 2017 to 2019, as occupiers involved in logistics, construction and retail continue to expand. Devereux noted those tenant lease-ups, combined with recent new momentum among manufacturers of computer chips and other high-tech products, helped to drive net absorption to a positive 11.8 million square feet during the past 12 months.

That absorption figure, indicating more space being occupied than vacated, was the third-best in the nation for the period. The Phoenix region posted $4.9 billion in industrial property sales during the past 12 months, up 86% from the prior year.

“Looking beyond the near-term dislocation, the recent pullback in construction starts indicates that a reprieve of supply could be in store by 2026, setting Phoenix up for a return to tightening vacancies and an eventual reacceleration in rent growth,” Devereux said.

The seller of Sarival Logistics Center was represented by Will Strong, Molly Hunt, Michael Matchett, Jack Stamets and Madeline Warren of brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. The buyer was self-represented. Cushman’s Mike Haenel, Andy Markham and Justin Smith provided market leasing advisory in the sale.