Lakeland, Fla.-based logistics company Saddle Creek Corp. has signed one of the largest industrial leases here in years, a little more than a month after acquiring a Buena Park-based competitor.
Saddle Creek, which provides warehousing, transportation and logistics services to companies in a number of industries, leased 626,304 square feet of industrial space at 6565 Knott Ave. in Buena Park, according to brokers.
The warehouse—one of Orange County’s largest buildings—is part of the Commercentre at Buena Park, a 55-acre business park on Knott between the Santa Ana (I-5) and Riverside (91) freeways.
The 661,400-square-foot building, which includes about 35,000 square feet of office space, has served as the headquarters and biggest local warehouse for Buena Park-based ServiceCraft Logistics, long one of the largest users of industrial space in the county.
Saddle Creek bought ServiceCraft in November for an undisclosed price. The deal gave Saddle Creek an additional 3 million square feet of warehouse space.
Saddle Creek now has about 15 million square feet of warehouse space across the country.
Most of Saddle Creek’s warehouses are on the East Coast and in Texas. Last year, the company leased a 268,536-square-foot warehouse in Santa Fe Springs.
The Buena Park lease more than doubles the amount of space ServiceCraft had on Knott Avenue, according to Luke McDaniel and Cameron Driscoll of Voit Real Estate Services, which represented Saddle Creek.
By the end of this year, Saddle Creek plans to take over close to 325,000 square feet at the building that’s now used by Long Beach-based TA Chen International Inc., a distributor of stainless steel products. TA Chen has a short-term lease that ends in the fourth quarter.
Specifics of the Saddle Creek lease weren’t disclosed. The lease is for more than three years, according to brokers.
The Buena Park building’s owned by Newark, N.J.-based Prudential Financial Inc., which bought it as part of a $170 million, 1.7 million-square-foot industrial deal with Gardena-based Overton Moore Properties in 2006.
The lease is believed to be the largest industrial deal in Orange County in more than five years, based on square feet, according to Voit.
Most local companies requiring large amounts of warehouse space have turned to the Inland Empire, where space is plentiful and cheaper.
For OC industrial buildings larger than 300,000 square feet, the average monthly lease runs about 55 cents per square foot, according to Voit.
In the Inland Empire, the largest warehouses average monthly rents of about 30 cents per square foot.
But staying in Buena Park proved to be more economical for Saddle Creek, according to McDaniel.
With shipments to and from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the Buena Park site is more affordable than hauling containers to the Inland Empire, McDaniel said.
The deal “shows that North Orange County is still a viable logistics location,” McDaniel said.
ServiceCraft’s local operations had been on the wane prior to its acquisition, according to industrial brokers familiar with North County.
ServiceCraft provides trucking, warehousing, distribution and other services to some 25 companies, including makers of consumer, paper, cleaning, health and beauty and food products.
The company is said to have slimmed back its Buena Park space in the past few years. In 2002, it had signed a 10-year deal for 661,400 square feet of space at the Knott Avenue building. But it renegotiated that deal a few years ago for significantly less space, according to brokers.
Other ServiceCraft warehouses are in Ontario, Chino Hills, Northern California and Texas.
