Rexford Industrial Realty Inc. (NYSE: REXR) is moving ahead with plans to expand and redevelop a Garden Grove site it acquired last year into a warehouse and logistics facility.
The Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust (NYSE: REXR), valued at about $5.9 billion as of last Friday, bought the industrial site at 12821 Knott St., fronting the Garden Grove (22) Freeway, for $19.8 million, or $164 per square foot.
The property, built in 1971, holds a vacant 120,800-square-foot building on approximately 8 acres of land. Rexford is in the process of modernizing and repositioning the existing building and adding a 44,371-square-foot 32’ clearance warehouse on excess land at the site, bringing the total square footage to 165,171. Improvements include 20,000 square feet of a new two-story office space, exterior enhancements, ESFR fire sprinklers, new LED lighting, and 26 dock-high loading positions.
Rexford, which owned about 700,000 square feet of industrial buildings in Garden Grove as of earlier this year, expects to wrap construction by March 2021.
Clyde Stauff, a senior executive vice president at the Irvine office of Colliers, represented Rexford in the 2018 sale and is in the process of marketing the site to industrial tenants.
“It will be an exceptional one-of-a-kind facility for the Garden Grove submarket, and we look forward to working with the Rexford team in leasing the property,” Stauff said.
Expected Deal
Stauff notes that tenant leasing activity for the industrial sector has picked up significantly as of late, with e-commerce companies continuing to fare well.
Demand for last-mile distribution centers is expected to bolster industrial development in the future, with another local site slated for new investment.
Sources indicate a deal is near for the former Kraft Heinz Co. site in Fullerton at 1500 E. Walnut Ave.
An unknown developer is said to be under contract for the 102,000-square-foot manufacturing facility that’s been vacant since late 2018, when Kraft shuttered its operations.
The new buyer is expected to build an industrial property on the 5.4-acre site near the 57 (Orange) and 91 (Riverside) freeways.
