Rockpoint Pays $36 Million for Garner Commerce Center Industrial Portfolio

Rockpoint Group paid $36 million for Garner Commerce Center, a three-building, 128,006-square-foot light industrial campus at 2545 and 2585 U.S. Highway 70 in Garner, adding one of southern Wake County's newest industrial parks to a growing North Carolina portfolio.

The Boston-based real estate private equity firm bought the 16-acre property from Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, which developed and completed all three buildings in 2024. The complex arrived on the market nearly stabilized: at the time of the sale, it was roughly 91% leased to a mix of small and mid-sized tenants drawn to the property's shallow-bay configuration, 18-foot clear heights, 39 dock-high doors and 312 parking spaces spread across three distinct suites of 37,779, 40,806 and 49,418 square feet.

Garner Commerce Center's location anchors its appeal as much as its specs. The campus sits 13 miles from downtown Raleigh near the interchange of Interstate 40 and the planned I-540 extension, placing it squarely in the path of logistics and distribution demand that has steadily migrated from higher-cost central Raleigh submarkets toward southern Wake County.

Fred Borges, a senior managing director at Rockpoint, described the acquisition in strategic terms. "These investments reflect our focus on high-quality, infill light industrial assets in select growth markets," Borges said.

The Garner buy is half of a larger six-building deal Rockpoint assembled across two North Carolina markets. The firm simultaneously acquired I-77 Commerce Center in Charlotte, a three-building, 151,501-square-foot park, bringing the combined portfolio to nearly 280,000 square feet. Rockpoint will operate both properties in partnership with Rockhill Management, its dedicated property services affiliate, and Rockpoint Industrial, its exclusive industrial operating partner.

For Garner, the transaction marks another chapter in a stretch of institutional attention that has tracked the town's proximity to I-40, its lower land costs relative to Raleigh proper and the regional workforce driving logistics and light manufacturing activity. A nearly fully leased asset changing hands at $36 million also raises the assessed value baseline against which future transactions in the submarket will be measured, with implications for local tax revenue and competing development proposals nearby.

Market conditions that made the deal attractive also carry long-term risk. Rising construction costs and the current interest-rate environment will test yield assumptions on newly delivered industrial product, and infrastructure along the Highway 70 and I-40 corridors in southern Wake County is already absorbing significant pressure from the pace of regional growth. Permitting activity, tenant leasing announcements and potential capital improvements at the campus are expected to follow as Rockpoint moves into active ownership.