INVESTORS

David Carreiro Named Toronto Regional Director Responsible for North America's Fourth Largest Industrial Real Estate Market

CHICAGO, May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: FR), the nation's largest provider of diversified industrial real estate, today announced that David Carreiro has been named regional director of its new Toronto office. Mr. Carreiro will be responsible for delivering industrial real estate supply chain solutions to customers and identifying investment opportunities in the Toronto market.

"We are very pleased that Dave has joined us to expand our platform into Toronto, North America's fourth largest industrial real estate market with more than 785 million square feet," said Mike Brennan, president and CEO of First Industrial. "As an inland port market with a well-developed intermodal infrastructure, Toronto serves as a critical distribution hub for Ontario, Northwestern Quebec and the Northeastern U.S., and offers us a wide range of opportunities to serve corporate customers' supply chain needs."

"Throughout his career, Dave has demonstrated a strong track record of building relationships with leading corporations and helping them with their supply chain requirements, particularly through development, surplus asset transactions, and leasing," said David Draft, executive vice president of operations for First Industrial. "We look forward to his many contributions to First Industrial's growth."

Given First Industrial's extensive customer franchise, investments have already been made in the Toronto market to satisfy rising customer demand. First Industrial currently owns three properties in the Toronto market totaling nearly 700,000 square feet, including a 343,249 square-foot distribution center acquired as part of a one million square-foot portfolio sale-leaseback transaction with Volkswagen. The remaining properties were acquired from Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK) as part of a $152 million portfolio acquisition to satisfy Rockwell's desire for an innovative sale leaseback transaction encompassing 24 industrial properties across multiple markets.

Planned investments include land, (re)developments, and acquisitions, including sale leaseback transactions. Industrial property types will include all of the major facilities found within industrial supply chains: R&D/flex, light industrial, manufacturing, and bulk and regional distribution centers.

Mr. Carreiro has more than 17 years of industrial real estate experience and joins First Industrial from Cushman & Wakefield LePage in Toronto, the Canadian operation of Cushman & Wakefield, the world's largest privately owned commercial real estate services firm. Most recently, he was vice president of that firm's Toronto West Industrial Division, where he led one of its top teams and was responsible for sales, leasing, brokerage, design build, and landlord and tenant representation. Mr. Carreiro was honored with numerous awards including the firm's "Award of Excellence" and was ranked among its Top 10 industrial brokers in Toronto every year since 1995. Mr. Carreiro earned a business degree at the Richard Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.

For additional information, please contact Dave Carreiro, regional director, at (905) 361-6677, dcarreiro@firstindustrial.com, 2425 Matheson Boulevard, E. Suite 859, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, L4W5K4.

First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc., the nation's largest provider of diversified industrial real estate, serves every aspect of corporate customers' industrial real estate needs, including customized supply chain solutions, through its unique I-N-D-L operating platform, which utilizes a pure Industrial focus and National scope to provide Diverse facility types, while offering Local, full-service management and expertise. The Company owns, operates and has under development more than 100 million square feet of industrial real estate in markets throughout the United States and Toronto, Canada. Building, buying, selling, leasing and managing industrial property in major markets nationwide, First Industrial develops long-term relationships with corporate real estate directors, tenants and brokers to better serve customers with creative, flexible industrial real estate solutions.

This press release contains forward-looking information about the Company. A number of factors could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those anticipated, including changes in: economic conditions generally and the real estate market specifically, legislative/regulatory changes (including changes to laws governing the taxation of real estate investment trusts), availability of financing, interest rate levels, competition, supply and demand for industrial properties in the Company's current and proposed market areas, potential environmental liabilities, slippage in development or lease-up schedules, tenant credit risks, higher-than-expected costs and changes in general accounting principles, policies and guidelines applicable to real estate investment trusts. For further information on these and other factors that could impact the Company and the statements contained herein, reference should be made to the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc.

CONTACT: Sean O'Neill, SVP, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, +1-312-344-4401, or Art Harmon, Sr. Manager, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, +1-312-344-4320, both of First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc.