A FedEx Freight terminal tucked into Northborough's industrial corridor traded hands for $36 million, with LaSalle Investment Management picking up the 54,504-square-foot property at 300 Bartlett St. in a deal that never hit the open market. The facility, built specifically for FedEx and expanded in recent years, includes a cross-dock freight terminal, a maintenance facility and supporting operational space that keeps trucks moving through the region.
Off-Market Sale Brokered Quietly
JLL Capital Markets arranged the sale, according to Connect CRE, with NorthBridge Partners as the seller. Michael Restivo, David Coffman and Tommy Hovey represented NorthBridge in the off-market transaction, the outlet reports. The property was sold off market rather than publicly listed.
Restivo said purpose-built transportation assets leased to creditworthy occupiers attract significant investor interest, particularly when they serve an essential role within a tenant's network, per the same account. He added that 300 Bartlett St. offered a rare opportunity to acquire a highly functional FedEx Freight facility in a supply-constrained logistics corridor serving Greater Boston and broader New England. JLL also noted the property's low building-to-land coverage ratio, extensive secured yard area and purpose-built design make it difficult to replicate elsewhere in the region.
A Facility Built, Then Rebuilt, for FedEx
The Bartlett Street site has a long history tied specifically to FedEx's freight operations, with the current building developed as a build-to-suit property for the carrier and expanded recently to add the cross-dock terminal and maintenance shop now on site. Back in 2023, the project's scope came before Northborough's Zoning Board of Appeals, when NBI Northborough sought permits to add 20 loading docks — bringing the total to 76 — and to construct a standalone maintenance shop to service FedEx's vehicles, according to the Community Advocate. That expansion was projected to generate roughly 169 additional vehicle trips on an average weekday, the paper reported at the time.
Historical reporting on the property's size has varied. The Community Advocate described the existing facility in 2023 as 31,725 square feet with 56 loading docks, while a separate report from the Worcester Business Journal put the 2013-built structure at 31,551 square feet. The Worcester Business Journal described the site as 24 acres. Those discrepancies predate the recent expansion that brought the property to its current 54,504 square feet.
Ownership Has Changed Hands Repeatedly
Bartlett Street's ownership history traces back to a vacant parcel that Jones Development bought in September 2011 for $2.94 million, according to the Worcester Business Journal. Once the FedEx building went up, Columbia Property Investors Northborough LLC purchased it from Hillside FXF LLC, an affiliate of the Kansas City-based developer, for $16.78 million, the paper reported, though it did not specify the year of that June 6 closing. The property later sold again for nearly $19 million to NorthBridge Partners, a transaction the Worcester Business Journal said closed Nov. 5, also without a stated year; the sellers in that deal were listed as Columbia Property Investors and SPC Associates of New Jersey.
Each sale reflects a steadily climbing valuation for the same stretch of industrial real estate, culminating in a $36 million price tag — less than double the facility's previous reported sale figure even before accounting for the recent expansion.
A Tightening Boston Industrial Market
The Northborough sale lands amid signs of a shifting industrial landscape across Greater Boston. Vacancy in the Boston industrial market fell 30 basis points to 11.8% in the third quarter of 2026, its first decline since the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Direct average asking rents climbed 9.6% year over year to a record $16.15 per square foot in the same quarter, the firm reported.
Seventeen industrial properties totaling 1.8 million square feet traded across Boston during the third quarter, Cushman & Wakefield's data shows. LaSalle Investment Management was active elsewhere in that market too, having acquired a 396,375-square-foot warehouse and distribution asset at 80 Pine Hill Drive for $90.3 million in the same quarter — the largest industrial transaction the firm tracked for Boston in that period.
