Heitman International, Crow Holdings International, Lehman Brothers and Wallis Real Estate have formed a $70m joint venture to develop Budapest’s first modern warehouse/distribution park.
The 180,000m2 development, known as Harbor Park, will be built on a 47ha site in the south west of the city. The land, which is 3km from the city’s ring road, already has a planning consent.
Trammell Crow Hungary, a real estate services joint venture between Wallis and Crow will also lease the project.
Harbor Park is Heitman’s second investment in the Hungarian capital’s property market in the last six months, and their third transaction with Lehman Brothers in Central Europe.
Last October, Heitman paid around $40m to Austrian developer Realia for Buda Square, a 17,650m2 office block, in a joint purchase with US investor GE Capital.
Heitman International is a subsidiary of Chicago-based Heitman Financial, one of the US’s largest real estate companies while Wallis Group is a private Hungarian conglomerate.
Crow Holdings is the group of companies that owns and directs the investments of the Trammell Crow family and manages investments both on behalf of the Crow family and its investment partners.
Commenting on the second Budapest purchase, Christopher Merrill, director of European investments at Heitman, said: “This is a rare opportunity in the Central European market. Our confidence in Budapest remains high and we continue to actively look for further investment opportunities in the market.”
