Rexford Industrial Realty Inc. (NYSE: REXR) has plans to redevelop a 5.8-acre industrial site it just bought in Fullerton into a new distribution facility spanning 139,000 square feet.
It’s the latest North Orange County buy for the Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust, which has remained active throughout the pandemic by acquiring infill sites and redeveloping them into logistics buildings.
The company, valued at about $8.5 billion as of last week, bought the Fullerton industrial site at 1901 E. Via Burton St. for $24.2 million.
The property, north of the Riverside (91) Freeway and east of the Santa Ana (5) Freeway, currently holds a warehouse totaling about 87,000 square feet.
Record Pricing
Schreiber Foods Inc. sold the land for about $96 per square foot, marking a record land value in North OC, according to Voit Real Estate Services, which represented both the buyer and seller in the transaction.
“This site offers Rexford the opportunity to further expand their industrial development platform in Southern California,” said Mike Hefner, an executive vice president and partner at Voit’s Anaheim office.
Rexford is expected to begin construction soon on the new industrial distribution facility, with an anticipated delivery date in the third quarter of 2022.
The record land pricing comes as North OC experiences all-time low vacancy rates of 1.58%, Hefner notes, prompting developers to “aggressively pursue very limited in-fill industrial sites in order to capitalize on the intense demand from industrial tenants and unprecedented appreciation in lease rates.”
Garden Grove
Rexford, which owns about of 3.3 million square feet of space in OC, also plans to expand and redevelop a Garden Grove site it acquired in 2019 into a warehouse and logistics facility.
It paid $19.8 million for the industrial site at 12821 Knott St. that was built in 1971 and holds a vacant 120,800-square-foot building on approximately 8 acres of land.
Rexford is in the process of modernizing and repositioning the existing building and adding a 44,371-square-foot 32’ clearance warehouse on excess land at the site, bringing the total square footage to 165,171.
Improvements include 20,000 square feet of a new two-story office space, exterior enhancements, ESFR fire sprinklers, new LED lighting, and 26 dock-high loading positions.
Rexford has an industrial portfolio in the city that spans 700,000 square feet.
