Orange County’s largest vacant commercial property is now spoken for.
A deal has been struck for a third-party logistics company to lease all of CenterPoint SoCal Logistics Center, a 1.1-million-square-foot industrial facility along Valley View Drive in Buena Park.
The site was vacated earlier this year by J.C. Penney Co., which long used the location as a distribution site.
Unis Co., a Walnut-based fulfillment and transportation provider, is moving out of a 619,000-square-foot building in the City of Industry into the Buena Park facility in a long-term deal, the company confirmed to the Business Journal.
It’s the first Orange County location for Unis, which now reports occupying 10 million square feet of space across the country, much of it near ports in Southern and Northern California.
The company’s marketing materials say the firm has more than 800 trucks and in excess of 1,200 customers, and that it can reach 98% of the country with its two-day service.
Top Deal
CBRE Group Inc. had the listing for the property on behalf of its owners, CenterPoint Properties, which bought the 44.5-acre site from J.C. Penney in 2017 for $131.3 million.
It paid the Texas-based retailer nearly $119 per square foot for the building, in one of the largest single-building industrial sales in Orange County in years. J.C. Penney has since relocated its area distribution operations to the Inland Empire.
Unis’ deal is said to be a seven-year lease, according to real estate sources.
The deal is the largest industrial lease in OC this year, not counting a sale-leaseback deal for another CenterPoint distribution facility in Irvine that’s used by grocer Albertsons.
The site will be primarily used for retail and e-commerce distribution, according to Chief Commercial Officer Scott Simanek, and “marks an expansion for Unis to become one of the largest privately owned third-party logistics companies.”
“We look forward to finding additional locations in Orange County.”
CubeWork, Too?
Unis won’t be using the entire building for its own operations; a portion of the Valley View facility will be subleased to shared space warehouse operator CubeWork, a company that Unis is affiliated with.
This would be the second local spot for CubeWork, which touts flexible lease terms for users of industrial space, in a manner similar to coworking office operators.
City of Industry-based Cubework also advertises industrial space for lease at 2323 Main St., a 260,850-square-foot facility at one of Irvine’s busier intersections: Main Street and Von Karman Avenue.
CubeWork’s space there still is advertised as being available for warehouse users, despite the building’s China-backed owners’ ongoing involvement in what federal authorities say is a tax evasion scheme.
CubeWork now lists five Orange County locations on its website, including Irvine, Buena Park and three “coming soon” spots in Anaheim, Garden Grove and Huntington Beach.
Recently Renovated
Bret Quinlan, John Schumacher and Rick McGeagh of CBRE led leasing efforts of the Valley View building on behalf of the Oak Brook, Ill.-based industrial firm.
The site, at 6800 Valley View, is a few blocks north of the Artesia (91) Freeway and 3 miles northwest of Knott’s Berry Farm.
New upgrades at the site include a new ESFR Sprinkler system, truck positions, improvements to the large truck courts and façade renovations.
The building includes about 104,000 square feet of office space and 152 truck docks.
“This property is located in a prime market with no competitive buildings in the area,” Quinlan said in a previous statement. “Tenants usually need to go to the Inland Empire for properties of this size. This is a very rare opportunity.”
Four Sales
Leasing news had been highly anticipated for the Buena Park facility, which is one of four stand-alone industrial buildings in OC larger than 1 million square feet, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
Each of the four buildings has changed hands since 2017, most recently with the sale of a Kimberly-Clark Corp. tissue paper-making facility in Fullerton that runs 1.2 million square feet.
That property will be redeveloped into a 1.5-million-square-foot logistics center that aims to capture surging demand for last-mile distribution facilities, according to the new owners, Australia’s Goodman Group, which confirmed its purchase of the property about a month ago.
The past year has also seen sale-leaseback deals of two Albertsons distribution facilities in Brea and Irvine.
They sold for $200 million and $278 million, respectively. CenterPoint bought the Irvine site, while an affiliate of Deutsche Wealth & Asset Management bought the Brea facility.
Redevelopment of those two sites aren’t expected any time soon; Albertsons has signed deals for at least 15 years for both locations.
