An East Coast real estate investment group has purchased property in Bondurant on which Amazon’s fulfillment center is located. The property was purchased for more than $326.2 million, which Polk County officials believe is the highest recorded sale price in the county’s history. Business Record file photo

Property in Bondurant that includes the Amazon AR Sort Fulfillment Center has been sold for $326.2 million, Polk County real estate records show.

The transaction is believed to be the highest sale price recorded in Polk County’s history.

“We can’t find anything higher,” a Polk County assessor told the Business Record.

The property at 500 32nd St. S.W. in Bondurant was purchased by Virginia-based Capital Square, a national real estate firm that specializes in tax-advantaged real estate investments including Delaware statutory trusts for Section 1031 exchanges and qualified opportunity zone funds for tax deferral and exclusion.

It is the second time the property has been sold since it became known that Amazon was locating a fulfillment center on the 167-acre site. In January 2020, Grant Street Project LLC, affiliated with Dallas-based Hillwood, paid Ryan Cos. $60.8 million for the property, which at the time was not fully developed.

Ryan Cos., based in Minneapolis, was the project’s general contractor.

The state-of-the-art fulfillment facility, with a gross area of more than 2.69 million square feet, opened in December 2020.

The property was among the largest Amazon-occupied properties to go on the market in 2021, according to a news release that announced the parcel was for sale. The original asking price was nearly $355 million, about $300 million of which was an assumption of debt, according to the release.

John Kevill, president of U.S. Capital Markets for Avison Young, which marketed the property, told the Business Record last spring that improvements to the facility, particularly in the area of technology, would create significant tax benefits for a new owner.

“The next owner is going to be able to accelerate the depreciation of those improvements and in the first year of ownership have a significant tax benefit,” he said.

Bryon Tack, Polk County’s chief deputy assessor, wrote in an email that the sale of the Amazon property likely would not have much effect on area warehouse space sale prices.

“There are multiple factors with this property, and its sale, that other warehouse properties do not share,” Tack wrote. “Primarily, Amazon is a highly sought-after tenant nationally and investors are willing to pay more for a building where [Amazon is] the tenant. … Investors are typically willing to pay more for a property with a long-term lease in place, especially a lease to a high credit tenant.”

According to a document filed with the Polk County recorder, Amazon Inc. signed an agreement to lease facility for 20 years. The lease expires Jan. 31, 2041. The Seattle-based online retailer can extend or renew the lease in five-year increments, according to the agreement.

Amazon leases 97% of the more than 294.1 million square feet of North American space in which its warehouse and delivery operations are housed, according to information included in its 2020 annual report. The company’s 2021 annual report has not yet been released.

In November, a New York-based group paid $75.9 million for property at 2300 Shiloh Rose Parkway in Bondurant on which an Amazon sortation center is located. The property, which includes nearly 50 acres, had been owned by Ryan Cos. The sortation center opened last September.