Longust Distributing Inc., a wholesale flooring supplier that’s had an Anaheim location since 2001, is the first company to announce a lease at the new batch of industrial buildings being constructed at Panattoni Development Co.’s massive Anaheim Concourse project.
The Mesa, Ariz.-based flooring company just signed a 10-year, 93,818-square-foot lease at one of the four industrial buildings being built by Newport Beach-based Panattoni on Miller Street.
The buildings, scheduled to be finished in November, will total about 625,000 square feet of space and are being marketed for lease.
Longust will relocate its Anaheim operations from its current location on North Anaheim Boulevard and is expected to move into the new building by the second quarter of next year, according to JLL Senior Managing Director Louis Tomaselli, who represented the tenant in the lease with colleagues Zach Niles and Steve Wagner.
CBRE Group Inc.’s Brad Bierbaum represented Panattoni and its financial partner for the 1.4 million-square-foot Anaheim Concourse project, Clarion Partners.
The Anaheim location will serve as the Southern California distribution center for Longust.
The company has been in business for 40 years, and its six warehouses run about 350,000 square feet.
The Anaheim space is slightly smaller than Longust’s current local location, but the efficiencies of Panattoni’s new buildings, including 32-foot ceiling heights and good access to freeways, more than make up for the lost space, Tomaselli said.
“They are getting a lot more efficient,” he said.
The lease closely follows Panattoni’s recent sale of four industrial buildings at Anaheim Concourse to a pair of out-of-town manufacturers.
Those buildings, which were offered as for-sale units, totaled about 243,000 square feet and sold last month for approximately $37 million on a combined basis.
Meyer Corp., a Vallejo-based cookware maker, bought three of the industrial buildings, while MaxLite Inc., a West Caldwell, N.J.-based maker of lighting products, bought the fourth.
The for-sale buildings were completed around the end of August.
Terms of the Longust lease weren’t disclosed. Larger, class A industrial buildings in OC tend to average monthly rents of nearly 60 cents per square foot. Newer buildings on the market can get rents closer to 65 cents per square foot, according to Tomaselli.
Ontario Buy
Newport Beach-based Guthrie Development Co. has snapped up an industrial park in Ontario.
The privately held company paid an estimated $20 million to buy Airport Distribution Center, a three-building, multitenant park that runs 221,171 square feet.
Guthrie partnered with an undisclosed private equity partner to acquire the property from Panattoni Development.
The industrial property is about two miles from the Ontario International Airport and more than 90% leased.
Quantum Lease Leap
Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide Inc., a developer of natural gas fuel storage systems and vehicle system technologies, has extended its lease for its Lake Forest headquarters.
The company, which makes hybrid powertrains and other products for the military and automakers, said last month that it renewed its lease for three buildings near the intersection of Commercentre Drive and Arctic Circle.
The industrial park is just down the street from Lake Forest’s new Baker Ranch housing development.
The buildings total 156,374 square feet and include the company’s corporate headquarters, a tank manufacturing and systems assembly building, a low-emissions testing laboratory, and an advanced technology center, the company said.
The amended and restated lease, struck with an affiliate of Mission Viejo-based Makena Properties, extends the existing lease term from mid-2015 to mid-2018 for two of the three buildings and to mid-2020 for the third building.
The total monthly rent for the buildings starts at $158,711 and falls to $62,903 after about five years, according to regulatory filings.
Quantum said it will also receive up to $234,561 for future tenant improvements.
The company had been based in Irvine but moved its headquarters to Lake Forest about two years ago. Its former Irvine location at Main Street and Cartwright Road in the Irvine Business Complex is being redeveloped into an apartment project.
