By Dave Collins
The Inland Empire isn’t what it used to be for Orange County developers.
A few years ago, San Bernardino and Riverside counties were the land of plenty for local developers facing scarce land and high prices in OC.
These days, the comments of Inland Empire real estate watchers have to sound like d & #233;j & #341; vu for OC developers.
“Demand has gobbled most of the available land,” said John Chung, an Inland Empire real estate analyst. Parcels “are still out there. But you have to look a little bit more and because more and more people are vying for that land, it’s not as easy to obtain.”
Things aren’t as bad as in OC, where a lack of land to build on has prompted development of condominium towers and taller office buildings.
As for big industrial buildings,forget about it. High land and construction prices have made them nearly impossible for developers in OC.
But now there’s a growing barrier to large projects in the Inland Empire, said Chuck Belden, managing director with Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
“We are seeing a lack of large parcels to develop,” he said.
From Chino to Moreno Valley, there probably are 1,200 acres of available industrial land, according to Mark Trammell, an Inland Empire real estate analyst.
“Honestly, we have seen the land available for that type of development become harder and harder to find,” he said.
OC Developers
Appetite for homes, warehouses, shopping centers and offices has been strong for the past few years in the Inland Empire. That’s attracted OC’s big homebuilders and developers.
They include Lake Forest-based PGP Partners Inc., Turner Development Corp. of Newport Beach, Hopkins Real Estate Group of Irvine, the Irvine office of Phoenix-based Opus West Corp. and Newport Beach’s Shaw Properties.
Adding to the situation: rising costs for steel, cement and other construction materials.
“It’s going up across the board,” said Mike Kendall, a vice president at Turner Development. “Construction costs are rising. With the shortage of land, sale prices and lease rates are continuing an upward trend.”
Projects continue to go up.
Strata Realty of Corona recently completed the Corona Spectrum Business Center, a 10-acre, 150,000-square-foot office park in Corona.
In 2004, Irvine-based Birtcher Development & Investment Co. completed an 814,000-square-foot office complex at Corona Crossroads.
Corona and other western sections of the Inland Empire have seen the bulk of the area’s development boom.
Now growth is pushing to the east, north and into the high desert.
In Victorville, Laguna Hills-based Stirling Airports International is working with Catellus Development Corp. of San Francisco to develop more than 50 million square feet of industrial space near the former George Air Force Base.
Stirling is redeveloping the base as Southern California Logistics Airport, a 5,000-acre site with runways, rail lines, truck lanes and warehouses.
Dougall Agan, Stirling’s principal, said he sees the airport bolstering trade between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the East.
“We are in a strategic position to meet that need,” he said.
Meanwhile, others are turning their attention to something unheard of in the Inland Empire until recently: redevelopment.
Newport Beach-based Hager Pacific Properties is redeveloping the 50-acre Colton campus of Stater Bros. Holdings Inc., which is building a headquarters at the former Norton Air Force base in San Bernardino.
Collins is a freelance writer covering Southern California real estate.
