Industrial Partners LLC

Industrial Partners LLC has been building industrial facilities and developing commercial real estate for more than 40 years. The company was founded in 1974 as a collaboration between Nimrod T. Frazer Sr. and The Patillo Construction Corporation, an internationally recognized and respected construction company specializing in industrial buildings. Located in Montgomery, Alabama, Industrial Partners and its sister company, The Jobs Company, maintain a combined portfolio of more than 2 million square feet of masonry, precast concrete or tilt-up buildings with spaces available from 3,630 to 167,000 square feet.

Establishing a legacy

Today, Nimrod “Nim” Frazer Jr. is the majority owner of Industrial Partners, overseeing day-to-day operations in their entirety. Joining the company in 1985, Frazer was introduced to the industry when he went to work for Patillo Construction Company in the late ‘70s while still in college. Upon graduating, Frazer served in the military for three years and was stationed in Germany. When he returned to the U.S., he went to work at The Frazer Lanier Company, a regional investment banking company owned by his father, although he ultimately concluded was not for him.

“I went to my dad and told him that I wanted to work in the industrial real estate business,” recalls Frazer. “At the time, that part of the business had really started to grow and we started picking up a lot of different buildings that we built on a spec basis and a build-to-suit opportunity. It went from only a couple buildings to 14 or 15.” The momentum that Industrial Partners gained enabled the company to purchase Patillo’s interest in the business.

Throughout all the developments and construction projects Industrial Partners is involved in, the company maintains complete focus on serving it tenants with exceptional customer service. The management style of Industrial Partners has proven to be essential in the company’s ability to survive the recession, which had devastating effects on the real estate industry. “You have to take care of your tenants because if you lose one, it takes five times the effort to replace them,” Frazer explains. “We work with some big companies with very high expectations. We do our best to make sure they are happy.”

A solution-oriented firm

As a licensed real estate broker, Frazer operates Industrial Partners as a full-service brokerage firm and works hand in hand with clients to meet their specific needs. Industrial Partners recently completed a deal with a Korean client to occupy one of its spec buildings Oct. 1, 2016. “We’re very excited about this deal as it is a sign of the economy bouncing back from the recession,” says Frazer. “We feel good about the future with this building.”

The client is a second-tier automotive manufacturer and supplier. Frazer is confident that the size of the building will be attractive to other prospective industrial clients. “In the last six months we had several prospects that came and looked at the property,” recalls Frazer. “Some were intrigued on their own and others heard about it through economic development circles, chambers of commerce or other realtors.”

Industrial Partners had been working for six months with the client to understand and meet its needs. Initially, the client had been working with a logistics company that was looking to provide trucking services as well as other business ventures.

The original plan was that the logistics company was going to occupy the entire 167,000-square-foot building and lease 100,000 square feet to the Korean manufacturing firm and speculate on the remaining space with additional clients. Ultimately the logistics company opted not to take deal, which left Industrial Partners the opportunity to work directly with the manufacturing firm.

“We were working with the client to possibly get them into another building in Montgomery,” says Frazer. “It was a smaller facility that would have had to be expanded from 45,000 square feet to 90,000,” says Frazer. “Although it would have been less expensive for the smaller facility, they decided that it would be a wiser investment to go into the spec building for a 10-year deal.” Throughout the complex process, Industrial Partners is happy to have established a great relationship with its new client.

Frazer is his father’s only child involved in the day-to-day operations of Industrial Partners, although his four siblings remain partners in the company. With the ability to buy out the interest of any partner if they are not comfortable in moving forward with a particular venture, Frazer says that is never the case as his partners trust him and his track record. “With the most recent spec building they all had the confidence in me to move forward with it, even though it presented some risk,” he says. “There is a lot of love and support in our family and we are all in this together.”

Building on more than 40 years’ experience, Industrial Partners LLC will use its expertise to remain a staple in the commercial real estate industry.