hsa commercial real estate assists in the hurricane recovery efforts in louisiana
October 24, 2005
(Chicago – October 24, 2005) HSA Commercial Real Estate has announced that it has leased its entire 253,000-square foot industrial facility at 1844 Commercial Drive, Port Allen, Louisiana, to the United States Postal Service to serve as the southern Louisiana mail distribution center after the USPS's main distribution center in New Orleans was rendered inoperable by the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. The lease will run for 5 years.
1844 Commercial Drive is located just west of the Mississippi River in Port Allen, Louisiana, a suburb of Baton Rouge. Constructed in 1981, HSA purchased the property in 1998. A previous tenant, Wilson Warehouse Co., Inc., was occupying the property on a month-to-month basis when Hurricane Katrina struck in late August. Immediately afterward, HSA's property managers in Chicago fielded about a dozen phone calls from interested parties who had been displaced by the hurricane and were looking for large warehouse/distribution space.
HSA began negotiations with representatives of the Postal Service after hearing about the terrible devastation of the mail distribution center in New Orleans. A decision was made by HSA's top management to offer the building to the Postal Service at an attractive rental rate to facilitate the region's return to normalcy and provide an effective means for the Postal Service to begin rebuilding the area's mail delivery system in anticipation of the return of hundreds of thousands of evacuees.
Celebrating more than 24 years of excellence in commercial real estate, Chicago-based HSA Commercial Real Estate is a full-service real estate firm specializing in office, industrial, retail and health care real estate leasing, management, marketing, development and financing on a national basis. The firm and its principals have developed and acquired more than 30 million square feet of commercial real estate across the United States with total consideration in excess of $1.5 billion, its brokerage divisions have completed more than 6,500 transactions in over 30 states representing both owners and tenants, while the asset management division currently manages a property portfolio in excess of 15 million square feet in 11 states.
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