GID and StepStone Real Estate Close $985 Million Industrial Portfolio Joint Venture
DALLAS — GID, the U.S.-based real estate investment management firm, announced Oct. 27 the formation of a new joint venture with an affiliate of StepStone Real Estate (SRE) and the closing of a $985 million manager-led secondary transaction involving an 8.0 million-square-foot industrial portfolio.
The portfolio comprises 87 buildings across eight U.S. markets: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Jacksonville, Portland, San Antonio and Seattle. GID said the deal is one of the largest U.S. industrial transactions year to date. GID has managed the portfolio since 2021 and will continue as asset manager on behalf of the joint venture.
Deal Structure and Pricing
The transaction is structured as a manager-led secondary and new joint venture. StepStone Real Estate is the real estate arm of StepStone Group (Nasdaq: STEP), a global private markets investment firm.
At $985 million for 8.0 million square feet, the deal implies a price of about $123 per square foot. The portfolio's 87 buildings average roughly 92,000 square feet each.
Portfolio and Markets
The portfolio is made up of infill industrial assets across eight institutional industrial markets. GID said the properties have a diverse tenant base and offer potential for future value creation through active asset management and leasing.
Rene Circ, President, GID Industrial, said in the announcement: "This Manager-led secondary transaction represents a tremendous opportunity for us to invest in a diversified light industrial portfolio at an attractive basis and establish a new partnership with StepStone. Our longstanding familiarity with the assets provides us with a differentiated understanding of the portfolio, its tenants and the markets in which it operates. We look forward to building on the portfolio's strong performance and creating continued value through active management."
John Waters, Partner and Global Co-Head of Investments at SRE, said: "We have been focused on building exposure to infill industrial assets, where structural supply constraints continue to support fundamentals. GID's familiarity with and demonstrated track record managing these assets were important factors in our decision to partner together, and we look forward to supporting the next stage of value creation through this transaction."
Industrial Market Backdrop
The deal comes as the U.S. industrial market moves through a bifurcated recovery. Elevated deliveries from the post-pandemic development cycle kept vacancy above historical norms, though new construction has slowed. Lee & Associates reported national vacancy of 7.5% in the second quarter of 2026, with first-half deliveries of 93 million square feet and year-to-date net absorption of 77.1 million square feet, roughly 30% below the pre-pandemic five-year average. Rent growth moderated to 1.3% year over year, the slowest pace since 2012.
More recent data point to improving conditions. Cushman & Wakefield reported that national industrial vacancy fell to 6.8% in the third quarter of 2026, down 20 basis points from year-end 2025, while asking-rent growth accelerated to 4%. Year-to-date deliveries declined 13% year over year to 185 million square feet. The differing vacancy readings reflect differences in research methodology and reporting period.
Lee & Associates found vacancy above 9% for large logistics buildings but below 5% for smaller buildings under 50,000 square feet without dock-high loading, and identified small-bay shortages in markets including Charlotte and Jacksonville. Chicago was among the tightest major markets in its second-quarter survey, at 5.4% vacancy.
About the Firms
GID is a privately held, vertically integrated real estate investor, operator, developer and lender that has operated a portfolio of multifamily, industrial and mixed-use developments across the United States for more than 65 years. As of June 30, 2026, GID owned or managed $33.3 billion of assets under management across more than 58,000 apartment units and more than 28 million square feet of industrial and commercial space. It maintains offices in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Dubai, New York, San Francisco and West Palm Beach.
StepStone Group was responsible for approximately $913 billion of total capital as of June 30, 2026, including $245 billion of assets under management. It serves pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, family offices and private wealth clients across private equity, infrastructure, private debt and real estate.
Outlook
The implied $123-per-square-foot valuation provides a headline benchmark for the transaction. Whether the venture achieves the value creation cited by its sponsors will depend on leasing performance and absorption across the eight markets as the industrial sector works through the supply built during the post-pandemic development cycle.
Sources
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