Sunland Nutrition Inc., a wellness-focused food and supplement distribution company, has paid nearly $15 million for an Aliso Viejo industrial building spanning 40,792 square feet to house its new headquarters.
The firm will relocate its base from Lake Forest to the facility at 81-91 Columbia, which will include the firm’s administrative and warehouse operations.
The deal works out to roughly $365 per square foot.
JLL’s Xavier Nolasco, Brian Thene, Steve Wagner and Cameron Driscoll represented the seller, La Mirada-based JDH Pacific, while Sunland Nutrition was represented by Steve Crane of Daum Commercial.
“Orange County continues to be a sought-after location for users of small to mid-sized industrial spaces,” Nolasco said in a statement.
US Operations
The 3.2-acre property is next to the 73 Toll Road, near the headquarters and manufacturing facilities of RxSight Inc. (Nasdaq: RXST) and Fluor Corp. The two-story property was built in 1990 and includes a 28-foot warehouse clear height.
Sunland Nutrition was previously based out of a 32,107-square-foot warehouse in Lake Forest.
The firm has four sales offices across North America with distribution originating from Southern California and New Jersey.
Products include vitamin supplements, organic sweeteners, herbal extracts and products used to sweeten or stabilize food items, such as guar and xantham gum. In addition to distribution services, Sunland Nutrition offers lab testing and contract manufacturing.
The sale is the fifth priciest for Orange County’s industrial market year-to-date, according to data from real estate tracker CoStar Group Inc.
OC Overview
Overall, the OC industrial market is hanging on to strong fundamentals despite the tightening economy, according to a first-quarter market report from CBRE. Asking lease rents climbed 14% year-over-year to another record high market rate of $1.67 per square foot.
Investment sales have slowed alongside the rest of the nation, “as the Fed’s hawkish stance takes undeterred efforts to cut inflation in core CPI at or below the 2% target rate,” the report said.
Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc., the U.S. video game and entertainment division of Japan-based publisher Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is behind the largest industrial lease of 2023, with its deal to take a 173,000-square-foot building at Fullerton’s Goodman Logistics Center.
Trailing that deal is a sublease transaction from another supplements company, Robinson Pharma, which signed on last month to take over 71,583 square feet in Santa Ana.
Robinson Pharma counts a sprawling base of manufacturing operations near the Costa Mesa and Santa Ana city lines. The new space at 2701 S. Harbor Blvd., a 305,750-square-foot building near the Santa Ana River, adds to that local base.
