IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Victorville City Council members in December will consider a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse-distribution center that will be built at the Southern California Logistics Airport.
The project will be built on open space at Phantom West and Nevada Avenue, said Brian Parno, chief operating officer with Stirling, a development company in Foothill Ranch in south Orange County.
If approved, the warehouse-distribution project would be the second-largest industrial building in the High Desert, slightly behind the Walmart logistics operation in Victorville that covers 1.5 million square feet, Parno said.
The Victorville Planning Commission has already OK’d the project, which probably would be built without a signed tenant. Construction could begin as early as next spring if the council gives its approval, Parno said.
“We’re going to wait and see what the market is like next year,” Parno said. “We would prefer to move forward with a signed tenant and make it a build-to-suit, but we’ll have to find out what deals are out there.”
Stirling also plans to build a 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse-distribution project at Phantom West and Air Expressway, Parno said.
Stirling is partnered with Victorville to develop the former George Air Force Base into Global Access, an 8,500-acre air, ground and rail transportation hub that would be the largest commercial development in the Victor Valley.
When finished, Global Access would create more than 24,000 jobs and support another 18,500 jobs in the region, according to logisticsairport.com, the Global Access website.
Stirling has already developed or helped to develop six major warehouse-distribution facilities in the High Desert that collectively have created about 800 jobs and cover more that three million square feet.
Those projects including Mars Candy, Rubbermaid and Plastipak Packaging, according to the website.
Now is a good time for industrial development, Parno said.
“Vacancy rates are six percent in the Inland Empire and a little lower than that in the High Desert,” Parno said. “The [industrial] market is doing well up here.”
