One Warehouse, Different Owners: How a Lease Can Sustain an Asset’s Value

An industrial warehouse can change owners several times without the people working inside ever noticing. Few stories illustrate this as clearly as Warehouse 1 at Ex Hacienda O’Donnell Industrial Park in Cuautitlán Izcalli. There, Grupo Danone renewed the lease in 2026 for the facility occupied by Bonafont, where it has operated for more than a decade. During that period, ownership transferred from O’Donnell to FIBRA Terrafina in 2013 and later to FIBRA Prologis in 2024.

Far from being an exception, transactions like this are a standard feature of the institutional real estate market, where the sale of a property does not, by itself, terminate existing lease agreements. As a result, the new owner also acquires the right to collect the contractual rental income until the lease expires. This allows investors to acquire assets with already stabilized cash flows while tenants continue operating without the change in ownership necessarily affecting their business.

From an investor’s perspective, what changes hands is not simply a building but a contractual stream of rental income backed by a real estate asset. The continuity of those lease agreements helps explain why an industrial warehouse can preserve and increase its value even as ownership changes. By maintaining rental cash flows and reducing uncertainty around future income, stabilized assets tend to become more attractive to institutional investors, supporting their long-term appreciation.

In the case of Warehouse 1, that dynamic translated into a real appreciation of roughly 26% over a little more than eleven years. In constant November 2024 dollars, the property’s valuation increased from an equivalent of US$779 per square meter to US$985 per square meter.¹ The first valuation corresponds to FIBRA Terrafina’s acquisition in March 2013, while the second reflects its incorporation into FIBRA Prologis’ portfolio in 2024, according to SiiLA.

However, that increase was not driven solely by lease continuity. The property’s appreciation also coincided with significant changes in the industrial market over the same period. Between the second quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2026, the average asking rent in the Cuautitlán-Tultitlán-Tepotzotlán (CTT) corridor increased from US$5.43 to US$11.24 per square meter per month, reflecting the strengthening of one of the country’s most dynamic industrial submarkets.

Against that backdrop, Warehouse 1’s lease renewal was signed for 60 months at a rental rate 3.6% above the average asking rent in the CTT corridor, suggesting pricing close to market levels rather than an extraordinary premium. As a result, Danone retained a location and infrastructure already integrated into its operations, while FIBRA Prologis added to its portfolio an asset backed by a long-term tenant and a stabilized rental income stream.

More than a story about a lease renewal or a change in ownership, the case shows that operational continuity and ownership turnover are not opposing processes. Precisely because of that, an industrial warehouse can change owners several times without the people working inside ever noticing.

To learn more about Mexico’s industrial real estate market, visit SiiLA Market Analytics or contact us at contacto@siila.com.mx.

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¹ Nominal transaction values were adjusted using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), based on the series available through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED).