Multi-state developer purchases former Amstore headquarters

Multi-state developer purchases former Amstore headquarters

GRAND RAPIDS — An affiliate of Bloomfield Hills-based Kojaian Management Corp. has purchased the 925,000-square-foot former headquarters of Amstore Corp. 

The sale of the facility at 3951 Trade Dr. SE closed on July 30, according to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, which brokered the deal with New West Michigan III Industrial Investors LLC. The 24-acre property had been on the market since mid January.

Kojaian Management is one of the largest warehouse owners in West Michigan, Stuart Kingma, associate broker for NAI Wisinski of West Michigan, told MiBiz

Kingma represented the buyer and declined to disclose the purchase price for the transaction.

The buyer plans to split the property up into smaller suites ranging from 50,000 square feet in size to the entire building, which served as the Amstore headquarters for the last decade. It was previously a Steelcase Inc. chair plant. 

As MiBiz reported in February, Amstore said it would cease manufacturing operations at the location yet this year.

“The property had unprecedented interest from the time of listing it to the actual sale,” Olga Hallstedt, commercial real estate adviser and associate broker at Berkshire Hathaway, said in a statement. “We were able to overcome the obstacle of the building having a second floor, which is typically not sought after in the industrial market.” 

The building has “great” infrastructure, heavy electrical capacity and is in a central location, she added.

The sale comes amid a limited supply of vacant industrial property in West Michigan. According to a report from the West Michigan office of Colliers International, just 1.62 percent of industrial property across the region currently sits vacant, resulting in difficulties finding space and more off-market deals.

Amstore cited a retail sector that had “changed dramatically in recent years” as the reason it ended operations at the facility. The company employed 133 people at its headquarters, all of whom were affected by the closure.