THE BLUEPRINT:
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Trader Joe’s buys 66-acre site in Islandia for new distribution hub
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The 921,000-sq-ft facility includes cold and freezer storage buildings
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Project could create up to 800 jobs on Long Island
National grocery chain Trader Joe’s has closed on its purchase of a 66-acre development site in Islandia, where it will build a sprawling warehouse and distribution complex.
The price was not disclosed, though real estate sources say the former CA Technologies property was sold for $118.5 million, nearly $1.8 million an acre.
Site work has already begun on the Monrovia, Calif.-based supermarket chain’s project that will total 921,000 square feet, which would be one of the largest single-user industrial properties on Long Island, as LIBN was first to report in May. The Trader Joe’s development is planned to include a 756,032-square-foot warehouse with a portion dedicated to cold storage, a freezer storage building of 125,433 square feet with an option to expand to 159,000 square feet, and a 6,261-square-foot maintenance building, according to a report from the Suffolk County Planning Commission.
Based on staffing at the grocery chain’s other larger distribution centers, the new Islandia hub could create as many as 800 jobs.
Islandia Property Owner LLC, the ownership group that acquired the 800,000-square-foot former CA headquarters in Oct. 2021, had originally planned a speculative development of eight separate high-ceiling, warehousing and distribution buildings totaling 980,000 square feet on the property, before Trader Joe’s, represented by Los Angeles-based developer IDS Real Estate Group, chose the Islandia site for its build-to-suit project.
The Islandia site’s ownership group, Axonic Capital, Taconic Capital Advisors, Onyx Equities and Paul Amoruso of Jericho-based Oxford and Simpson, acquired the former CA campus after paying $24.1 million for the $165.6 million commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) note on the property and took ownership after negotiating with the borrower on a mutually agreed upon “friendly” foreclosure, as LIBN previously reported. The CMBS loan was originated when a real estate entity controlled by investor Jay Johnson, Islandia Operators Holdings LLC, purchased the property from the software giant for $204.3 million in a 2006 sale/leaseback deal.
The sale to Trader Joe’s is the third transaction that Amoruso has been involved in with the Islandia property. As a young real estate broker in 1989, Amoruso sold the original 63 acres in Islandia for $34.65 million to a joint venture between Manhattan-based Related Companies and Computer Associates, which built CA’s headquarters in 1991.
“I’m happy to be part of the original Computer Associates and now being part of the new rebirth of this property to Trader Joe’s,” said Amoruso, who declined to discuss details of the latest transaction. “With so many contractions of big corporate names on Long Island, it is a win for Long Island to see a company who doesn’t have a big facility here take a huge step onto a huge footprint. The new growth is a positive statement, and I think we need that on Long Island.”
There are currently at least 13 Trader Joe’s stores that the new Islandia distribution hub would service, including seven on Long Island, three in Brooklyn and three in Queens. But the development of the Long Island distribution facility also opens the door for the chain to expand its area retail footprint. Today, the nearest Trader Joe’s distribution center is a 530,000-square-foot facility in Bath, Pa., which is about 120 miles and two bridge crossings away from the chain’s Garden City store, taking trucks at least three hours to travel each way.
The proposed Trader Joe’s distribution hub in Islandia would not be the company’s largest. The grocery chain just completed a new warehouse and distribution center on 104 acres in Palmdale, Calif. that exceeds 1 million square feet and is expected to employ nearly 1,000 people. That development followed a 1 million-square-foot complex in Franklin, Ky. that opened last year and was slated to employ 800.
At the end of 2024, Trader Joe’s had 593 stores throughout 43 states and Washington D.C.
The Islandia development site sale was brokered by a team from Cushman and Wakefield that included Tom DeLuca, Greg Herman, Frank Frizalone, Nicholas Gallipoli, John Giannuzzi, David Frattaroli and Austin Fitzpatrick, which represented both buyer and seller.
“The commitment to establish a distribution center on Long Island marks a significant advancement for the region, particularly in terms of economic growth, job creation and enhanced logistics infrastructure,” DeLuca told LIBN. “Our C&W team is proud and excited to be a part of this landmark transaction.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
