- What Gray Group bought a large industrial portfolio as a sale-leaseback
- Why Acquisition price translated into 7.4% capitalization rate
- What next It’s Atlantic Canada’s largest industrial deal of the year so far
An industrial portfolio has traded hands in Atlantic Canada’s biggest logistics play of 2025, and one of the largest in the past few years, Green Street News can reveal.
Gray Group Real Estate & Development, a family-run firm based on Prince Edward Island, bought the multi-province portfolio from Parts for Trucks, which will lease back the space for an unknown term. The $30.5m trade, which closed on June 4, translates into a first-year capitalization rate of 7.4%.
The CBRE Atlantic Canada industrial team – Brad Bakke, Gary MacKenzie and Ross Kelleher – had the assignment. The team declined to comment when reached by Green Street News.
It’s the largest industrial trade in Atlantic Canada so far this year, per Green Street’s Sales Comps Database. Since the start of 2023, just two deals have exceeded $35m. Both were that year in Dartmouth, N.S.: the $38.5m sale of 11 Mount Hope Avenue and the $37.0m trade of 40-46 Borden Avenue.
Included in the Gray Group’s purchase were eight properties they occupy, and one multi-tenant commercial property. The assets are in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. The total rentable area is about 162,000 sq ft.
The largest of the portfolio’s properties is 15 MacDonald Avenue in Dartmouth, which Parts for Trucks uses for its headquarters. The 60,000 sq ft property on 5.7 acres has 26 grade-level loading docks and two dock-level loading areas. The building has 45,000 sq ft of space on the ground floor, a 6,000 sq ft mezzanine and a 9,000 sq ft second floor.
The structure was built in 1969, and has seen repeated additions over the years, most recently in 2016.
The multi-tenant commercial property is at 8 Cromer Avenue in Grand Falls-Windsor, N.L. It has several buildings across 2.3 acres, two of which are occupied by Parts for Trucks (8,500 sq ft and 3,000 sq ft). Canadian Tire is a tenant in a 10,000 sq ft building and Dairy Queen occupies a 2,300 sq ft building on the property.
The remaining properties are:
- 60 Glencoe Drive in Mount Pearl, N.L. (25,000 sq ft)
- 6 Ragged Lake Boulevard in Halifax (16,000 sq ft)
- 10 Upham Drive in Truro, N.S. (10,000 sq ft)
- 344 Hodgson Road in Fredericton, N.B. (8,000 sq ft)
- 461 Keltic Drive in Sydney, N.S. (7,000 sq ft)
- 320 Dalton Avenue in Miramichi, N.B. (7,000 sq ft)
- 257 Brakley Point Road in Charlottetown, PEI (6,000 sq ft)