Alberta Investment Management Co. (AIMCO) has acquired a five-building industrial portfolio in Greater Montreal for approximately $129.2 million.

The buildings are located in the Lachine and Dorval areas and comprise approximately 455,000 square feet. All were constructed during the 1980s and offer ceiling heights ranging from 18 feet to 24.5 feet.

The vendor was Pure Industrial.

The properties are:

• 20-62 Lindsay Ave., Dorval: 81,908 square feet with a clear height of 18 feet. It was sold for $19 million;
• 1405-1495 55th Ave., Dorval: 51,990-square-foot building with a clear height of 24 feet, sold for $22.2 million;
• 1595-1815 55th Ave., Dorval: 158,959 square feet with an 18.5-foot ceiling height. It was sold for $44.4 million;
• 2026-2080 32nd Ave., Lachine: The 70,970-square-foot building offers 18-foot clear heights and was sold for $16.9 million; and
• 2260 32nd Ave., Lachine: A 92,870-square-foot building which offers a 19-foot ceiling and sold for 26.8 million.

The purchase price represented a per-square-foot cost of $293. The deal closed in June.

A spokesperson for Pure declined to comment for this article. A spokesperson for AIMCo responded to an initial query from RENX, but did not provide any information about the transaction and did not reply to a followup email.

Two portfolio acquisitions in Montreal

The transaction was one of two sizable portfolio trades during the second quarter, according to JLL’s Q2 industrial report for Montreal. It cited over $850 million in total industrial transaction volume during Q2, the highest amount since Q1 2023.

In the other major Q2 trade, Groupe Mach acquired a 664,218-square-foot portfolio from Zorg Inc. for $136.7 million. Two of the properties, in the Laval Business Park, are fully tenanted by Pelican, a manufacturer of watersports products. The third building (5850 Maurice-Cullen, comprising approximately 138,000 square feet) was vacant when the transaction closed.

The transactions come as the Greater Montreal market normalizes after several years of significant growth.

"Montreal’s industrial market continued to distance itself from pandemic-era fundamentals, with elevated levels of negative absorption and a notable uptick in vacancy and availability rates,” the report states. “Cooling in the market prompted landlords to drop their rates for a third consecutive quarter to facilitate deal flow, resulting in a 1.8 per cent drop in average net asking rates.”

The report cited year-to-date negative net absorption of 2.8 million square feet and a rise in the total vacancy rate to 4.9 per cent. Total availability was at seven per cent.

There has been almost two million square feet of new industrial space delivered to the market so far, with an additional 2.2 million square feet under construction (34.7 per cent pre-leased).

Average asking rents were at $15.63 per square foot, down 1.8 per cent over the previous quarter and continuing a three-month trend.