26 June 2011
Aeropost International Services, which provides package delivery services to Latin America and the Caribbean, is expanding operations and signed a lease worth more than $10 million for a building at Blue Lagoon Business Park in Miami.
Flagler Real Estate Services LLC said the multi-year lease on 176,348-square-feet of space is its largest industrial lease in South Florida this year. Flagler’s senior vice president George Pino and senior leasing associate Jason Tresslar represented the landlord.
The property at 6703 NW 7th St. in the area known as Miami Airport West was formerly occupied by DHL Global Forwarding. The space had been vacant for only 31 days by the time the deal closed, Pino said.
Aeropost had been operating from Doral in a nearly 40,000-square-foot warehouse space.
“We’ve outgrown three warehouses,” said Aeropost President Jim Fendell said after a recent WorldCity event. “Now, we’re situated for the next few years.”
The expansion comes as more consumers in fast-growing Latin America and the Caribbean turn to the Internet to buy goods in the United States and then, ship the items south. Online buying offers greater selection and better prices in many cases than their home countries, Fendell said.
Aeropost offers customers an online platform to track their packages from the time it arrives at the company’s Miami warehouse to its delivery at their home or office address. It also offers a branded credit card to facilitate U.S. purchases online and even has “shopping advisors” to help people who have never shopped online before, executives said.
Amazon.com is the single largest source of the packages that Aeropost ships, Fendell said.
North Bridge, a venture capital firm in the Boston area with more than $3 billion under management, recently invested in two-decade-old Aeropost, helping to fund its expansion.
For more information on Aeropost, visit www.aeropost.com
For more information on Flagler’s real estate arm, visit www.flaglerdev.com/FRES.
For more information on North Bridge Venture Partners, visit www.northbridge.com