GreenPoint Partners has launched an investment platform that will specialize in truck and trailer outdoor storage, a form of industrial outdoor storage, with a goal of investing $500M in the property type.

The alternative investment specialist is also investing an unspecified amount in Semi-Stow, an Austin-based semitruck parking and trailer storage operator. Semi-Stow will operate the IOS properties that GreenPoint acquires.

GreenPoint has already closed on its first two acquisitions, which have a storage capacity for over 1,000 semitrucks and trailers in the Houston and  Dallas-Fort Worth markets. Both assets are being upgraded to meet Semi-Stow's brand standard.

Industrial outdoor storage is a popular niche play, with investors looking for oddly shaped plots of industrially zoned land with enough improvements to allow trucks to come and go.

“We are seeing a flurry of demand from investors,” JLL Vice President of Brokerage Rob Maddux told Bisnow last fall.

Their storage function can involve trucks but also any number of other goods, including recently arrived imported cars, last-mile delivery vans or PVC piping. As the demand for deliveries grew during the pandemic, so did the demand for IOS.

“Truck parking and trailer storage is a key component of the logistics and e-commerce value chain and a sector where innovation has historically been limited,” GreenPoint CEO Chris Green said in a statement.

IOS is generally perceived as a property type with relatively low maintenance and upkeep costs, but also tenants who tend to be sticky.

In 2022, Catalyst Investment Partners acquired 23 IOS properties via two funds. Its funds also targeted $500M in acquisitions in IOS.