Aliso Viejo-based Shea Properties ended 2020 with plenty of leasing activity at its just built Shea Business Center in Santa Ana, including signing on its largest tenant to date.
Florida-based moving and storage company PODS, or Portable On Demand Storage, in December inked a 166,722-square-foot lease at the nine-building industrial development along Dyer Road.
It’s the fifth and largest lease to date for Shea Business Center, a nearly 500,000-square-foot complex that wrapped construction in mid-year. It’s the largest industrial project built in the vicinity of John Wayne Airport in over a decade.
It’s also the sixth industrial lease in Orange County to top 100,000 square feet since the onset of the pandemic, according to Louis Tomaselli, a senior managing director at JLL.
That’s on par with the six leases of the same size made during the three months of the year, prior to the pandemic, which marks “a bar bell market recovery in Orange County” this year, Tomaselli said.
60% Leased
The most recent deal is for the largest building at the complex, at 705 Alton Avenue. PODS’ lease begins in January and runs 10 years.
Six of the nine buildings at the industrial park are geared toward smaller occupants, with the single-tenant buildings in the 24,000- to 38,000-square-foot-range; the three remaining larger buildings range from 72,000 to 166,000 square feet.
All of the reported leases to date have been for full buildings.
Shea signed on its first tenant in July when Hoag Hospital signed a 24,165-square-foot lease at 652 E. Dyer Road.
The next month, Anduril Industries inked a 36,201-square-foot deal at the complex, about four miles from Anduril’s headquarters elsewhere in Irvine’s airport area, which it moved into in 2019.
Peloton, the N.Y.-based stationary bike company that has grown in popularity along stay-at-home orders, inked a 33,876-square-foot deal at Shea Business Center in October.
The last new tenant at the project is BYLT Apparel, an online clothing retailer that signed a 27,795-square-foot lease in November.
The project, situated on a 25-acre site a few blocks west of the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway and about two miles from the airport, kicked off construction in 2018.
