A New Jersey real estate investment trust has picked up The Home Depot's distribution hub south of Atlanta.

Monmouth Real Estate Investment Corp. purchased 3150 Highway 42, a 658K SF distribution facility leased to The Home Depot Inc., for $96.7M or $147/SF. The building sits on 130 acres off Interstate 75 in Locust Grove, a city in Henry County 36 miles south of Downtown Atlanta.

Monmouth didn't disclose the seller, but Henry County tax records indicate Scannell Properties and the Henry County Development Authority were the previous owners.

Monmouth CEO Michael Landy said in a press release the purchase was part of the REIT's effort to buy the newest and most advanced industrial facilities for its portfolio, which has doubled in size over the past five years. Monmouth's average warehouse age is 9.5 years, Landy said.

“A common misconception is that all industrial real estate provides a linkage to the digital economy, but in fact, a new type of industrial real estate has been designed specifically to serve the computer-driven supply chain,” Landy said in the release. “These smart, highly-automated facilities are uniquely equipped to handle omni-channel distribution.”

In 2018, Monmouth purchased a 374K SF FedEx Ground Package facility in Braselton for $61M. The firm also owns a former Caterpillar warehouse in Griffin, which was backfilled by Rinnai in 2017.