By JOSEPH ASCENZI
Costa Mesa-based Armstrong-Butcher Properties LLC is set to develop a six-building office complex in Corona.
Corona Summit Corporate Center will be built on an 18-acre site at McKinley Street and Sampson Avenue next to the Riverside (91) Freeway, said Blair Armstrong, managing member of Armstrong-Butcher.
The buildings will total about 285,000 square feet in all.
The $80 million speculative development is set to break ground in October.
It will be built in two phases and is expected to take two to three years to complete, Armstrong said.
The project will be anchored by a five-story, 110,000-square-foot building.
That structure will be flanked by two three-story buildings of 75,000 square feet each, two single-story buildings of 9,600 square feet each and a single-story building of 7,200 square feet, Armstrong said.
The multistory buildings will be leased and the single-story buildings will be sold. Armstrong declined to discuss sale or lease rates.
Taylor Ing and Michael Day, senior vice president and senior associate with CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s Ontario unit, will market the project.
The first phase will include the two 75,000-square-foot buildings and the pair of 9,200-square-foot facilities.
Corona’s office market has been strong.
“First you get houses, then you get retail, and after that the office market follows,” Armstrong said. “There’s so much need for expansion (in Riverside and San Bernardino counties) that we have to take advantage of it.”
Corona Summit will be built on a bluff, so it could take longer to build than most office projects of similar size.
“The site is an engineering challenge, to say the least,” Armstrong said. “It’s on a mountain, so it’s going to be a tremendous grading project.”
Corona has 1.7 million square feet of office space. Another 1.3 million square feet is either under construction or proposed, said Judi Staats, the city’s economic development project manager.
Most of the office space that is proposed or under construction in Corona will be class A space.
“We’re getting interest all over town, particularly on the west end,” Staats said.
Because it borders Orange County and has good freeway access, the city is attracting its share of OC companies that are looking for more affordable office space, Staats said.
“We joke about calling ourselves ‘Corona del Mar,'” she said.
Armstrong-Butcher was founded in 2000 and has developed $100 million worth of buildings.
Ascenzi is a staff writer with The Business Press in Ontario.
