Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc. is mounting a big expansion in the Inland Empire, bringing with it as many as 800 jobs during the project’s first phase and almost 1,400 within two years.
In a $30 million, 10-year deal, Ingram Micro Inc.,the computer industry’s largest products distributor and assembler,has agreed to lease an 800,000-square-foot assembly and distribution facility in Mira Loma.
Grading has begun at the northwest corner of Hamner Avenue and Harvest Drive at the site of a former vineyard, said Kent Hindes, a broker with Cushman & Wakefield in Ontario.
Eventually, Ingram Micro might add a 500,000-square-foot building on the 131-acre site, bringing the total size to 1.3 million. That would make Ingram Micro one of the Inland Empire’s largest industrial building complexes.
Hindes and broker Rick John negotiated the deal with Collins Commercial Corp. in Ontario, before Hindes moved over to the Ontario office of Cushman & Wakefield of California Inc.
Pacific Newport on Board
Construction is expected to be completed by next summer, he added.
Hindes negotiated the build-to-suit project on behalf of developer Pacific Newport Properties in Irvine. Pacific Newport Properties has partnered with the DeBerard family in Mira Loma, owner of the property, to form Mira Loma Vineyard Ltd. The DeBerard family has been looking for a good use for some of its vineyard property, Hindes said.
“Unfortunately, that’s something that’s dying out in the area,” he said of the grape industry.
Ingram Micro will lease the building from Mira Loma Vineyard for an undisclosed sum. Bill Patton, principal of Pacific Newport and an in-law of the DeBerard family, will serve as managing general partner of Mira Loma Vineyard Ltd. and manage the facility.
Paul LaPlante, senior vice president for Ingram Micro, said as many as 590 jobs could be added during the project’s second phase. About 75% of the jobs at the Mira Loma facility will be warehouse-related, and about 10% office jobs.
The remaining jobs will be technical and light assembly jobs, LaPlante said. He declined to discuss the pay scales of those jobs.
Wal-Mart Next Door
Hindes said the facility, which will be located next to a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. distribution facility that opened a year ago, will be among the largest of its kind in the U.S. The deal was in the works for four months before coming together in mid-November.
“It’s going to be a distribution center and a product fulfillment center, and it’s going to have about seven miles of conveyor system,” Hindes said. “It’s a big thing for the county, because they (Ingram Micro) were looking all over Southern California for a location.”
John Field, spokesman for Riverside County Supervisor John Tavaglione, said the county worked hard for the Ingram Micro facility.
“They do assembly, so it’s not just a warehouse or a distribution center,” Field said. “We’re delighted they’ve decided to come to Riverside County. We’re looking forward to a long and prosperous relationship with these guys.”
Patton said the facility will serve as Ingram Micro’s distribution hub for the West Coast.
“This is going to mean a lot of jobs coming to Riverside County,” said Patton, whose company is developing and building the project. “It’s also a perfect location for something like this, because it’s freeway-close to everything. I hate to say that because it sounds like a cheap commercial, but it’s true.”
In Orange County, Ingram Micro employs 3,300 people at its Santa Ana headquarters and a distribution and assembly plant in Fullerton. n
Ascenzi is a staff reporter with the Business Press in Ontario
