Panattoni Development Co. has submitted plans for an industrial facility in Tustin spanning 143,437 square feet next door to one of its latest local development projects, which is now occupied by electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive Inc. (Nasdaq: RIVN).
An affiliate of the Irvine firm, which bills itself as one of the largest privately held, full-service real estate development companies in the world, acquired two adjoining parcels on Myford Road in separate deals last year totaling nearly $41 million.
The two sites, at 14321 and 14351 Myford Road, currently hold a 57,330-square-foot building and an 82,000-square-foot building, respectively, which will be demolished to make way for the new project, according to plans filed with the city. The two lots total 7.2 acres; the new building will span both parcels.
The proposal includes a 143,437-square-foot warehouse, 5,000 square feet of mezzanine office area and 19 truck docks as well as 103 parking stalls.
Older Buildings
Panattoni in March 2022 first paid $19.3 million for the larger building at 14351 Myford Road, which was first built in the 1970s.
Panattoni bought the property via an LLC with ties to Chicago’s Revantage, a lending company that works with Blackstone Group, records indicate.
In August 2022, Panattoni paid $21.3 million for the latter site at 14321 Myford Road, which was first built in 1978. That site was fully leased at the time of sale to construction firm Woodbridge Glass Inc., according to records from real estate tracker CoStar Group.
Rivian Base
The proposed development is adjacent to another Panattoni project; a roughly 220,000-square-foot industrial building at 14451 Myford Road that delivered in November, shortly after Panattoni and development partner Link Logistics Real Estate, a unit of Blackstone, sold the property for a sky-high $142.1 million, property records indicate.
Principal Global Investors Inc., an industrial investor headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, acquired the building for about $646 per square foot.
Panattoni bought the nearly 7-acre site on the Tustin side of Myford Avenue in mid-2020 for $32.4 million.
The reason for the pricey sale: in June 2022, Rivian signed a lease for the entirety of the building, marking the largest lease to date in OC for the company. The EV maker is paying close to $6 million a year in rent for the facility, according to CoStar estimates. That equates to monthly rents in the $2.27 per-square-foot range.
It’s the third building in the immediate area for Rivian; its headquarters are a few doors away on the Irvine side of Myford Road, and it also leases an industrial facility a few blocks away in Tustin for its electric battery division.
Rivian moved into the building a few months ago; its lease spans three years.
There’s been no disclosures that the EV maker has plans to occupy the forthcoming Panattoni development, though Orange County’s fourth-most valuable public company, with a market cap near $13.5 billion as of last week, has been looking of late to consolidate operations from outside the area.
