Duty-free retailer signs 200,000-square-foot deal for new facility in Miami-Dade

Travel retailer Dufry signed a 200,000-square-foot lease for a built-to-suit warehouse and office facility near Doral.
Blanca Commercial Real Estate’s Christopher Harak and Juan Ruiz represented the Switzerland-based retailer in the deal. Prologis, the landlord and developer, was represented by Jones Lang LaSalle.

Harak said Dufry has outgrown its 160,000-square-foot facility at International Corporate Park, another Prologis (NYSE: PLD) facility. The company will leave that facility for a new building at Beacon Lakes.

The company has 215 employees now, and the expansion should allow it to hire 50 people in its office over the next two years, he said.
“They were in an older building, and it was becoming inefficient,” Harak said. “They were looking for a space to accommodate them for the next 10 years.”

The 200,000-square-foot facility, which will include 25,000 square feet of office space, will be at the southeast corner of Northwest 137th Avenue and Northwest 14th Street, he said. It should break ground by the end of the first quarter, and be ready by the first quarter of 2019.

Prologis extended the lease at Dufry’s current location until the new building is ready, he added.

Dufry sells its goods at 2,200 duty-free shops in 63 countries, mostly in airports, seaports and cruise ships. This facility mostly ships goods to the Caribbean, Mexico and other parts of Latin America, Harak said.

“This lease is critical for our short-and long-term business needs, as our new space will support our continued growth and accommodate our annual expansion requirements for the foreseeable future,” Dufry CEO Rene Riedi said.

Since the new building will have 32-foot ceilings – six feet taller than the current building – more depth and wider column spacing, it will allow Dufry to be 30 percent more efficient with the flow of goods in its space, Harak said.