Growing Auto Wine Trading Firm Manray Express Triples Space In North Central Miamidade

By Yudislaidy Fernandez
A growing shipping and freight-forwarding company based in Miami-Dade has leased 70,000 additional square feet at an industrial park in North Central Dade, expanding its operations there to 110,000 square feet.

Manray Express initially leased 40,000 square feet at the AMB Pargo Distribution Center at 3380 NW 114th St. in January, but growth, coupled with the opportunity to get a competitive rent deal, prompted the expansion.

Manray Express, a company first run from a home office, now operates almost triple the space it originally did, which is made up of warehouse and container freight stations.

The Miami-Dade-based company, with foreign agent offices in the Bahamas, Paraguay and plans to open a third in Belize, operates as an exporter and distributor, primarily for Central and South America and the Caribbean, said President Robert Hamer.

Manray, with a staff of 15, is a versatile enterprise.

It imports wines from France, Italy and Australia and is also a licensed car dealer — another successful part of its business — as it buys cars for its clients, handling all the paperwork and shipping them anywhere in the world.

The Gratigny area used to be the place to be and then everybody decided to go to Medley and other newer industrial parks, Mr. Hamer said, allowing him to now anchor a well-lit, professionally-ran property.

"I knew because of the economy, people would throw space at you," he said. "We are paying rent you have not seen since the 1980s."

With the expansion, Manray committed to a three-year lease with two three-year renewal options. Specific lease terms weren’t disclosed.

"AMB likes to accommodate existing tenants," said Brian Smith, executive director of industrial brokerage services at Cushman & Wakefield, who represented landlord AMB Property Corp. "He needed to expand to grow his business and we needed to fill space."

Michael Silver of CB Richard Ellis represented the tenant.

Manray Express’s decision to expand is driving occupancy at the 160,000-square-foot park, with only 45,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution space left to lease.

The 1972-built distribution center, with 10 dock doors, sits in the county’s north central region, an area that’s home to established companies. These include Winn Dixie, which has its local distribution center there, and Performance Food Group, one of the nation’s largest foodservice distributors.

"These are all larger corporations that have been around a long time who are tenants in the area," Mr. Smith said.

Cushman & Wakefield’s industrial brokerage team has completed other large-scale leases this year, including representing Carnival Cruise Lines in leasing 175,000 square feet at Centergate at Gratigny and TA Associates Realty in an 182,000-square-foot deal.

The AMB distribution center is within the Opa-locka market, which is faring well with 7.1% vacancy, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s mid-year report.

"It’s a good-sized deal for this market," Mr. Smith said. "It takes 70,000 square feet off the market, which helps everybody." Advertisement