Becknell Industrial Begins Work on 1.1 MSF Savannah Warehouse

Construction site and pad for a new 1.1 million-square-foot building at Old Augusta Commerce Center in Rincon, Ga. Image courtesy of Becknell Industrial

Becknell Industrial is developing the third of six planned industrial buildings at its 4.9 million-square-foot Old Augusta Commerce Center industrial park in the Savannah, Ga., port market. Shell delivery for the 1.1 million-square-foot, state-of-the-art industrial building is expected in the fourth quarter.

The firm, which specializes in the development, investment and management of industrial properties across the U.S., said the building will feature 40-foot clear height, 470 car parking spaces, 277 trailer parking spaces and 226 dock doors.

The Becknell team on the project includes Matt Neumann, Michael Brazeal, Bret Culen, Rick Romeo, Joel Repiscak, Ethan Kieffner, Mehul Doshi, Ben Paolone and Hanna Rasche.

The JLL leasing agents are Chris Tomasulo, Ryan Hoyt, Bennett Rudder and Lindsey Wilmot.

The building is part of the firm’s Old Augusta Commerce Center at Rincon, Ga., which is in close proximity to the Georgia Ports Authority in Savannah.

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Becknell, which has offices in LaGrange, Ill.; Carmel, Ind.; and Delray Beach, Fla., acquired 430 acres of land in the Savannah industrial market in July 2021 and began construction of the first two buildings in the master-planned Old Augusta Commerce Center. The first building, a 1.1 million-square-foot warehouse at 1200 Logistics Parkway, was leased by NFI Industries, a supply chain solutions provider, in early 2022. It was the third-largest lease in the Savannah market in the quarter, according to a Colliers Savannah industrial report from the second quarter of 2022. NFI is one of the oldest and largest privately held 3PLs in North America, serving customers throughout various industries and operating over 65 million square feet of warehouse space.

The second building is 442,606 square feet. Details on a tenant or tenants for the smaller building were not available but Becknell noted in a construction update this week that there had been strong preleasing activity for buildings 1 and 2 at the industrial park.

Growing port market

OACC is 10 miles from Savannah’s Garden City Terminal and minutes from Interstate 95 and Interstate 16. The industrial park allows Becknell to address the demand of the fastest-growing and second-busiest port on the Eastern U.S. seaboard. The Port of Savannah’s Garden City Terminal is the largest single-terminal container facility of its kind in North America that serviced 4.68 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2020. Over the next decade, the Georgia Ports Authority plans to expand the current capacity of 5.5 million TEUs per year to 8 million TEUs. Savannah’s location lets industrial tenants reach 80 percent of the U.S. population within two days by truck.

The market remains hot, with vacancy below 1 percent at the end of 2022, according to JLL’s Industrial Insight| Q4 2022 report. JLL notes Savannah’s industrial market continued to break records with rapid deliveries and strong leasing activity, and year-to-date absorption at 15.3 million square feet, surpassing 2021’s rate. The tight vacancy pushed rents up by 27.8 percent year-over-year. Nearly 21.5 million square feet of space was under construction in the fourth quarter. Seven buildings totaling 4.3 million square feet of space delivered in the fourth quarter, and all had been preleased or build-to-suit. About 8.5 million square feet of space is scheduled to deliver this quarter, with more than half preleased. JLL states the demand has pushed developers to significantly increase the size of the buildings they are constructing, with the new standard being 500,000 square feet, up from 350,000 square feet before 2000.