The first batch of for-sale industrial buildings built at Panattoni Development Co.’s Anaheim Concourse project has been snapped up by a pair of out-of-town manufacturers expanding into Orange County.
Meyer Corp., a Vallejo-based cookware maker, and MaxLite Inc., a West Caldwell, N.J.-based maker of lighting products, recently closed on the purchase of four newly built industrial buildings at the former Boeing Co. campus.
The buildings, on La Palma Avenue between Miller Street and Ocean Circle, total about 243,000 square feet and were completed during the past few weeks.
They’re the first of 14 high-end industrial buildings being built by Newport Beach-based Panattoni at the 80-acre Anaheim Concourse project. The privately held developer has owned the land for about seven years, following Boeing’s departure from its longtime campus in northeast Anaheim.
The buildings under development—a mix of for-sale and for-lease properties—will total nearly 1.4 million square feet upon completion.
Meyer Corp. purchased three of the just-completed buildings, which combine for 194,173 square feet, and MaxLite purchased the fourth, which is 48,864 square feet.
Financial terms of the individual sales hadn’t been disclosed. Sources familiar with the deals estimated they totaled close to $37 million, or a little more than $150 per square foot for the four buildings, which hold executive offices, prominent facades, and other high-end features, in addition to core industrial space.
Brokers with the Orange office of CBRE Group Inc. who had the listing for the buildings declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements.
Jobs Coming
The sales to the two companies, neither of which has a large Orange County presence, are expected to result in several hundred new jobs in Anaheim, according to Stephen Batcheller, a partner at Panattoni.
Meyer Corp. bills itself as the largest cookware company in the U.S. and the second-largest cookware manufacturing company in the world. It makes a variety of pots, pans and other products for cookware brands.
Meyer and its affiliates’ manufacturing operations employ more than 5,000 people in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and its factories produce more than 42 million pots and pans per year on average, according to the company’s website.
Sources say Meyer Corp. plans to immediately set up operations and move into one of the three buildings it purchased. The other two buildings could be leased in the short term to other companies until Meyer Corp. gets its OC operations ramped up, according to the sources.
The company is keeping its headquarters in Northern California.
MaxLite is expected to move its California headquarters from Rancho Cucamonga to Anaheim following its single-building purchase.
The company makes a variety of energy-efficient light bulbs, fixtures and other lighting products.
It had been using its Rancho Cucamonga location as a distribution center and as its regional headquarters. The company also has a distribution and product assembly center in West Caldwell, N.J., where it’s based.
The quick sale of the four buildings bodes well for the remaining development at Anaheim Concourse, according to Batcheller.
“We came up with a plan that’s been well-received by the market,” he said. “There’s a lot of demand” for newer industrial buildings right now.
Panattoni, which moved the headquarters of its development operations from Sacramento to Newport Beach a couple of years ago, has developed close to 5 million square feet of industrial space across California in the past two years, including the Anaheim project.
Deal
The company also announced a deal in July with New York-based insurer MetLife Inc. to build an additional 6 million square feet of large warehouse and distribution properties around the U.S. over the next few years.
The projects are expected to include locations in the Inland Empire, Atlanta, Seattle and Chicago.
The next test for Panattoni and its financial partner in the Anaheim development, New York-based Clarion Partners LLC, will be on the leasing front.
The upcoming phase of development at the Anaheim Concourse to be finished—a four-building project on Miller Street that will total about 625,000 square feet of industrial space—is being marketed to prospective tenants for lease.
CBRE’s Brad Bieraum, Brian DeRevere, and Ryan Peterson have the listing for the buildings, which should be completed in November. They run between 151,000 and 162,000 square feet. Lease rates for the buildings haven’t been disclosed.
The final phase of development planned at Anaheim Concourse is a six-building project slated to run about 500,000 square feet.
That batch of construction is expected to break ground in October and will include a mix of for-sale and for-lease buildings running from about 36,000 to 132,000 square feet.
