IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Grading has begun on a planned warehouse-distribution project in San Bernardino.
Palm Distribution Center will be built at Palm Avenue and Industrial Parkway next to Interstate 215, said Jay Dick, senior vice president with CBRE Group Inc. Ontario.
The speculative project, a single building that will cover 678,000 square feet, will cost about $45 million to construct.
The property is owned by Valhalla Real Estate in Universal City. Valhalla has hired IDS Real Estate Group in Los Angeles to build the project and CBRE Group Inc. to act as leasing agent, said Julie Thomson, Valhalla’s chief financial officer.
“It’s a great site, right next to the freeway,” Thomson said. “But there’s a lot of dirt that has to be transported.”
So much dirt must be moved that grading won’t be finished until the end of this year. Work won’t begin on the building until at least one tenant is signed, Dick said.
“It’s a little unusual because it’s a speculative project now, but once we get past [grading] it will become a build-to-suit,” Dick said. “All you have to do is look at the site to see how much dirt has to be moved.”
Several companies have already expressed interest in locating at Palm Distribution Center. Finding tenants shouldn’t be difficult given the current strength of the Inland Empire industrial market, Dick said.
Valhalla Real Estate is owned by Gale Anne Hurd, owner of Valhalla Entertainment, a long-time Hollywood production company that specializes in science fiction projects.
Hurd started Valhalla Real Estate in the early 1990s. The company has extensive commercial holdings in California, including retail properties in Old Town Pasadena and four blocks of industrial warehouses in San Francisco, Thomson said.
IDS Real Estate was founded in 1987. Its portfolio includes more than 20 million square feet of commercial real estate space in the western United States, according to the company’s website.
