Irvine-based DIV Industrial, a new development firm launched last year by a pair of Orange County commercial real estate executives, has closed on its first land transaction for a sprawling logistics complex near Las Vegas.
The company paid a reported $15 million for 94 acres of land in the El Dorado Valley, where it will build two distribution buildings totaling 1.7 million square feet.
Nicholas Ilagan and Jessica Quesada launched DIV Industrial in August; the partners previously worked at Newport Beach-based CapRock Partners—which specializes in logistics facilities in California, Arizona and Nevada—where Ilagan was senior vice president of asset management and Quesada was vice president of asset management.
“We saw an opportunity in the market to create a small company that’s focused on development, with specific attention to detail to every deal we undertake,” Ilagan told the Business Journal.
The company has four employees and is based out of a 1,500-square-foot office at the Boardwalk development on Jamboree Road.
The firm aims to differentiate itself from competitors through ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) efforts, specifically sustainability.
“We have a goal of making each of our developments LEED certified, which is pretty unheard of for the industrial industry,” Ilagan said.
El Dorado
That goal starts with the Henderson, Nev.-based project, dubbed El Dorado Valley Logistics Center, which will be LEED certified upon completion “and serve the next generation of distribution warehouse users with the highest efficiency building specifications,” the company said.
DIV plans to break ground in the second quarter and deliver the project by next summer. The two buildings will total 1.1 million square feet and 600,000 square feet.
“We are already in discussions with about six different groups for the larger building,” Ilagan said. “The vast majority of buildings under construction in the market are pre-leased, and we are confident our project will be no different.”
Las Vegas “fits all the investment criteria for us,” with limited land availability, vacancy rates below 1% and growing demographics in the wake of the pandemic.
SoCal Goals
DIV is currently raising capital for its first fund to invest more than $2 billion in industrial development and entitlement projects throughout the Western U.S.
The company is specifically targeting Southern California, Salt Lake City and Phoenix.
“We’ve seen a few deals in Orange County but nothing has come together yet,” Ilagan said.
Both Ilagan and Quesada grew up in Orange County and chose Irvine as the company’s headquarters “because it’s the epicenter of commercial real estate.”
Ilagan is heading the company’s investment and development strategy while Quesada will oversee operations and asset management, as well as the company’s ESG and DEI—or diversity, equity and inclusion—efforts.
“Our focus is to take on new acquisitions and projects, ideally with some in Southern California, and continue to give our full attention to each individual deal,” Ilagan said.
