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A Whitestown distribution center occupied by low-cost online retailer Shein has been sold to a New York-based firm.
Building 8, a 565,500-square-foot structure at 5608 E. County Road 500 South was sold to SkyREM for $47.2 million, according to Boone County property records. Shein, which has fully leased the building since late 2022 through its distribution arm, Style Link Logistics LLC, is expected to remain the sole tenant.
The building was sold by Indianapolis-based Strategic Capital Partners, which completed construction as part of the 65 Commerce Park just east of Interstate 65, to the north of the interchange at East County Road 550 South.
“We are excited to expand our Midwest industrial portfolio with the addition of this mission-critical, high-quality asset that is leased to a strong, creditworthy tenant,” Marc Civitillo, managing director of SkyREM, said in a news release. “We want to thank the Strategic Capital Partners team for a seamless transaction and look forward to working with them in the future.”
The Whitestown facility is SkyREM’s only current holding in Indiana and one of the five largest in its 29-property portfolio.
The distribution center is one of two occupied by the China-based Shein in the campus, and it was the company’s first such facility in the United States. The firm also occupies an adjacent building of just more than 300,000 square feet in the park. When first announcing its Whitestown investment, Shein projected having up to 1,400 central Indiana employees by the end of 2025, but current employment figures were unavailable.
The 65 Commerce Park campus has more than 3 million square feet of distribution and logistics, according to developer Strategic Capital Partners. According to IBJ research, it’s the 19th-largest industrial park in central Indiana and the developer’s largest local holding , although Strategic Capital Partners also owns properties across Indianapolis, as well as in Hamilton County.
The company is actively marketing its final parcel at the site, which was part of the initial development that began in 2018. The property can accommodate a structure of up to 286,000 square feet and is currently being marketed as a build-to-suit site.
But Strategic Capital Partners is open to staying flexible and patient as the industrial market continues to shift, said John Cumming, the company’s senior vice president of development.
“We’re seeing the market trend in the right way from a demand standpoint, because a lot of those spaces that have been sitting for a year or two, maybe even three years, are getting leased,” he said. “So there’s probably a higher likelihood that we’ll see more build-to-suit activity as a result. We’ll also consider going vertical on that Building 7 site on a [speculative] basis.”
Additionally, the developer has acquired 100 acres west of Interstate 65–a site it’s calling 65 Commerce Park West—for the construction of another 1 million to 1.2 million square feet of space across up to three buildings.
“We’re really bullish about the northwest sub market and the Whitestown area in particular. We think there’s a lot of momentum along the I-65 corridor, not only with what’s happening in Whitestown and Lebanon, but also the LEAP district, and then even going up to all the economic activity that Purdue is generating in West Lafayette.”
Strategic Capital Partners was represented in the sale of the Shein building by the Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets team out of Chicago, consisting of Adam Tyler, Jim Carpenter and Mike Tenteris, and local Cushman & Wakefield broker Patrick Lindley.
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