After Gojo Industries, the maker of Purell hand sanitizer, hired Newmark to sell its vacant 608,737-square-foot distribution centerin Navarre, Ohio, the real estate company's Coyne Team put together a marketing plan to target both owner-users and investors.
The team believed both avenues would have to be pursued in order to find a buyer for a building this size, located about 60 miles south of Cleveland.
Through its research, the Coyne Team identified a strong buyer prospect in Briar Meads Capital, a real estate investment firm based in Manhattan.
According to its website, BMC is a private investment management firm that specializes in the acquisition of distressed loan assets in the United States. The firm targets properties that may have been overlooked by institutional investors in the $25 to $75 million price range.
What's more, BMC already owned other industrial property near the warehouse on Erie Avenue.
About the deal: Working with BMC to analyze the facility for its portfolio, the Coyne Team simultaneously pursued tenants that would be a good fit for the facility, drawing on its relationships with area companies, former clients and the economic development organizations in the city of Canton and Stark County.
After conducting a full analysis and due diligence, BMC proceeded to purchase the building, acquiring the Massillon warehouse and three nearby properties in June for $25.07 million, according to documents filed with the Stark County Auditor's Office.
The sale included the roughly 55-acre industrial property at 4676 Erie St. S as well as vacant land to the east in Massillon and to the south in Perry Township. The building sale was followed on June 19 with the signing of a first lease for 369,616 square feet.
A second lease is actively being negotiated and was expected to bring the building to full occupancy. The sale and subsequent reactivation of a 608,737-square-foot distribution building was selected as a winner of a 2025 CoStar Impact Award for sale of the year in Cleveland, as judged by real estate professionals familiar with the market.
What the judges said: "The Navarre industrial sale offers tremendous economic benefits to the area by filling a large, vacant facility in an area that needed jobs and ancillary businesses," said Richard Kassouf, the owner and broker of record of New Hope Realty.
They made it happen: The Coyne Team at Newmark, which arranged the sale and subsequent leasing of a large vacant warehouse in Navarre, consisted of Vice Chairman Terry Coyne and Director Claire Coyne.
CoStar Market Manager Akeem Holmes contributed to this report.