Ares Management Corp. has acquired a 164K SF industrial building in Morrisville, a suburb of Raleigh in the Research Triangle, for $28.4M, Triangle Business Journal reported.

The building, which sits on 9.5 acres, serves as the Raleigh location of the Pennsylvania-based drug wholesaling company Cencora, formerly AmerisourceBergen, the building’s sole tenant.

The seller of the building was Pennsylvania-based EQT Real Estate, which purchased it in 2021 for $16.1M.

Prior to that purchase, EQT also managed the property’s 2011 sale for $9.7M as part of a larger portfolio purchase by an affiliate of Mid-South Industrial REIT I.

The building’s total assessed value is reportedly $19.7M, according to TBJ.

The single-story property sits at 120 Trans Air Drive, near the corner of McCrimmon Parkway and Airport Boulevard, and close to the Spark LS and Pathway Triangle life sciences campuses.

This deal, while large, will likely be overshadowed by recent news that Novartis announced plans to build a flagship manufacturing hub on a 45-acre site in nearby Durham as part of a $771M investment in North Carolina, TBJ reported.

Novartis said the investment will add 700 jobs across the region.

The investment is part of Novartis’ commitment to augmenting its research and development and manufacturing in the U.S. The goal of the investment is to ensure that all key Novartis medicines for U.S. patients are manufactured within U.S. borders.