Real estate developer buys Rock Falls Stanley Black & Decker building for $16.1 million

ROCK FALLS – The I-88 Distribution Center at 41 U.S. Route 30 – the former Stanley Black & Decker building – that was bought by an investment company in 2018 for $3.8 million was sold early this month to a Forth Worth, Texas, commercial real estate developer for $16.1 million.

Quad City Metals Investments LLC in Fort Worth, which incorporated in April and is managed by Dax T.S. Mitchell, founder and principal of MAG Capital Partners, LLC in Fort Worth, bought the building and the 124 acres on which it sits from I-88 Distribution Centers LLC.

Robinson Investments Ltd., based in Bellefontaine, Ohio, owned the distribution center; it bought the building for $3.8 million in September 2018.

In December 2018, Cimco Recycling became the first tenant at the 640,000-square-foot renamed I-88 Distribution Center; it’s a good tenant with a long-term lease and is not going anywhere, Mitchell said Thursday.

That leaves 124 acres of land near the interstate that is ripe for development.

Quad City Metals has no immediate plans for the site other than to try to attract businesses and develop the parcel, said Mitchell, 30, who also is principal at the commercial real estate development firm Mitchell Asset Group Inc.

The building had been vacant since 2011, when Stanley Black & Decker announced that its plants in Sterling and Rock Falls would be closed. Stanley Works bought the National Manufacturing plant in 2005, and the decision to close the plants came in the aftermath of its merger with Black & Decker in 2010.

Robinson Investments does commercial and residential real estate development, specializing in warehousing and logistics. In 2018, the company had dozens of Midwest clients, including Procter & Gamble, Ford and General Dynamics.

Cimco has been based at 13509 Galt Road in rural Sterling since 2006; the recycler also leases property at 3101 W. Fourth St. on Sterling’s west end.

Those interested in partnering in the development of the Rock Falls site can reach Mitchell at contact@mitchellasset.com or 310-918-7854. His website is www.mitchellasset.com.