3PL Global LLC, a Carson-based provider of third-party logistics services, is moving its Irvine and Santa Ana operations to Fullerton after signing one of the largest industrial leases in North County in the past few months.
The company recently completed a 229,422-square-foot lease at 2501 E. Orangethorpe Ave., a warehouse about a half-mile northwest of the intersection of the Orange (57) and Riverside (91) freeways.
3PL will occupy the entire building, which was previously used by Quaker Oats Co. of Chicago.
Terms of the lease weren’t disclosed.
The Fullerton building’s space had been offered for lease earlier this year at a monthly rate of 59 cents per square foot—or roughly $135,000 per month—according to brokerage data from the local office of CBRE Group Inc.
The lease is the largest industrial transaction in Orange County since the end of September, according to a mid-quarter market report from the Irvine office of Voit Real Estate Services.
A 3PL official said in a post on the company’s website that its recent growth prompted the move to Fullerton.
The facility is larger and more modern than 3PL’s Irvine space, a multitenant property on Von Karman Avenue, according to the company.
3PL’s move is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The company currently occupies more than 500,000 square feet of space. It’s also been leasing about 100,000 square feet of space in a Santa Ana warehouse along Carnegie Avenue.
3PL provides warehousing, distribution and logistics services for a variety of retailers and other companies; customers have included The Boeing Co., QSC, B. Braun Medical Inc. and the city of Irvine, according to the company’s website.
The nearly 6-year-old company, previously known as Terry Bowman Group of Logistics, had been based in Irvine but announced plans to move its headquarters to Carson after leasing a new 300,000-square-foot building in that city last year.
Prologis
Both the Carson and Fullerton buildings are owned by San Francisco-based Prologis Inc., one of the country’s largest owners of industrial buildings.
Prologis bought the Orangethorpe Avenue building at the end of 2011, paying Quaker Oats a reported $18.3 million.
The terms of the sale allowed Quaker Oats, which has been owned by Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo. for about a dozen years, to lease back the building for about a year.
The building is on nearly 12 acres and has more than 30 dock doors and enough space to park about 115 trailers. It also includes about 7,200 square feet of office space.
The property got a major renovation after Quaker Oats departed, attracting 3PL to the space, said Ben Seybold, senior vice president for the Orange office of CBRE.
Seybold, Rick McGeagh and Sean Ward represented Prologis in the lease, along with Lessel Realty’s Mike Lessel.
Wayne Lamb and Dillon Dummit with the Newport Beach office of Cresa Orange County represented 3PL in the lease.
The lease takes one of the larger empty industrial spaces in North OC off the market. Fullerton’s industrial market runs about 17 million square feet, and its buildings had a vacancy rate of about 5% at the end of the third quarter, according to brokerage data.
