Inland Empire’s Industrial-Strength Projects

A developer will break ground this morning for yet another huge warehouse in the Inland Empire, this time in Rancho Cucamonga. In Chino, GE Plastics has signed a lease for more than 300,000 square feet. Both events are signs that the already rapid pace of industrial development in Riverside and San Bernardino counties is intensifying.

Catellus Development Corp. said the warehouse will be a 443,000-square-foot distribution center on a 23-acre parcel at 8291 Milliken Ave. in Rancho Cucamonga Corporate Park, a 140-acre development near the I-10 and I-15 freeways. Catellus will build the warehouse for Jacksonville, Fla.-based GATX Logistics, a distributor of consumer packaged goods, which has signed a five-year lease.

Principals in the deal did not provide a value for the lease, but real estate industry sources estimated it at about $7 million, based on monthly rental rates of 25 to 27 cents per square foot for several comparable-sized industrial leases in the region recently.

The Catellus project and other recent industrial developments suggest that demand is intensifying for the massive warehouses in and around Ontario that have turned the Inland Empire into one of the nation’s premier distribution centers, said John Husing, an economist who specializes in the Inland Empire.

The Ontario area hub was identified as “one of the two or three top distribution centers in the country” by industrial specialists nationwide at a recent meeting of the National Assn. of Industrial and Office Parks, Husing said.

Husing cited three primary factors for the boom in warehouse space: The plentiful land in Riverside and San Bernardino counties enables developers to build giant facilities with features and equipment required for modern warehousing methods; the area is “a lot less crowded” than other parts of Southern California; and “the labor supply here is very much blue-collar oriented.”

The GATX facility, a project of the Newport Beach office of San Francisco-based Catellus, is the latest in a spate of construction projects and leases of huge Inland Empire warehouses announced in recent weeks. Last week, Newport Beach-based Master Development Corp. said it will build next year the Inland Empire’s largest single speculative industrial building, a $32-million, 900,000-square-foot project called Origen Rail Center, near Arrow Route and Interstate 15.

Other recent deals include GE Plastics’ 15-year, $18.5-million lease for more than 300,000 square feet of space at 14050 Norton Ave. in Majestic Spectrum, a 450-acre development of Los Angeles-based Majestic Realty Co. in Chino.

The building will serve as GE Plastics’ regional manufacturing and distribution headquarters, according to Mitch Zehner and Louis Tomaselli of Voit Commercial Brokerage, which represented GE Plastics in lease negotiations. Majestic Realty was represented in-house by Steve Palmer.

In the GATX lease, Catellus was represented by Frank Geraci and Len Santoro of CB Richard Ellis, and GATX represented itself. Architect for the project is Hill Pinckert Architects of Newport Beach. Ontario-based Fullmer Construction is the general contractor.