IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held yesterday on a 1.5-million-square-foot logistics facility in Rancho Cucamonga.
Goodman Birtcher, the North American subsidiary of Goodman Group, the largest industrial property development company in Australia, is developing the two-building project.
The first structure, which will cover 555,000 square feet, is expected to be finished next March. The second building, which will cover approximately one million square feet, is expected to be ready next May.
Irvine-based Goodman Birtcher bought the vacant 75-acre site in 2012 for an undisclosed sum and began moving dirt there in March.
Goodman Logistics Center Rancho Cucamonga will cost about $150 million to build, and it’s expected to create roughly 1,000 jobs. Both buildings will be leased, and Goodman Birtcher plans to manage both facilities, said Brandon Birtcher, Goodman Birtcher’s chief executive officer.
There’s a good chance that one or both of the buildings will end up an e-commerce center, meaning a facility that delivers goods to the buyer’s home or office the day they’re ordered.
About 30 percent of the logistics centers that are built in major U.S. markets today, including the Inland Empire., become e-commerce centers, Birtcher said.
“The trend in the [logistics] industry now is to get as close to the customer base as you can,” Birtcher said. “The Inland Empire is ideal for that.”
No tenants have been signed, but the project is generating interest and both buildings should fill up quickly once construction begins, said Bill Heim, principal with Lee & Associates Los Angeles.
“That market [Inland Empire west] is on fire right now,” said Heim, one of two brokers marketing Goodman Logistics Center.
Lease rates are expected to be around 40 cents a square foot, Heim said.
Goodman Logistics Center is one of five warehouse-distribution projects Goodman Birtcher is developing in Southern California. Those projects will cost about $775 million to build and create 10,000 to 12,000 jobs.
Three of those projects are in the Inland region: a 2.7-million-square-foot facility in Eastvale, a one-building, 640,000-square-foot project in Fontana and the Rancho Cucamonga facility. The Eastvale development will include a business park and retail.
Both projects are being entitled by their respective cities and both are expected to be approved, Birtcher said.
Rancho Cucamonga is pleased to have anything that will bring the city 1,000 jobs, said Linda Daniels, the city’s assistant city manager.
“It’s good for the city,” Daniels said. “Goodman-Birtcher is a pretty well-known company. It brings us some jobs, and hopefully creates more [developer] interest in that part of the city.”
Goodman Birtcher received no incentives from Rancho Cucamonga for locating there, Daniels said.
