Birtcher Breaks Ground on Inland Empire East Development

Birtcher Oak Valley Commerce Center groundbreaking. (Left to right) John Ohanian, director of development, Oak Valley Development Co.; Brooke Birtcher Gustafson, managing director, Birtcher Development; Brandon Birtcher, CEO, Birtcher Development; Craig Martin, principal with Oak Valley Development Co. Image courtesy of Birtcher Development

Birtcher Development has broken ground on a 125-acre, 2.2 million-square-foot industrial development in Calimesa, Calif., in the Inland Empire East, that will be targeting big box tenants with warehousing and distribution needs. Birtcher is expected to complete phase one, totaling 1.2 million square feet, in the second quarter of 2023. Phase two, which will comprise 1 million square feet, will be delivered in the third quarter of 2023.

Located off I-10, Birtcher Oak Valley Commerce Center will consist of four Class A industrial buildings designed to meet current high demand for logistics facilities in Southern California. They will offer 40-foot clear heights, flat floors and a minimum of 185-foot truck courts.

The site off Singleton and Roberts roads will provide an opportunity for autonomous trucking with immediate freeway access onto its campus, where transportation firms can shift to cabs with drivers for urban deliveries. In addition to I-10, the site is also near the BNSF Intermodal, which serves as a predominant inbound container hub for the region and is a key driver of tenant demand in the area.

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Brooke Birtcher Gustafson, managing director of the Newport Beach, Calif.-based company, said in prepared remarks that the firm is bullish on the growth of the Oak Valley I-10 Corridor because of its strategic location just beyond Redlands, Calif., and deep untapped labor market.

The new industrial campus is expected to draw long-term corporate credit tenants who have been unable to secure space in the tight markets of the Inland Empire and Los Angeles. Tenants have been moving further east into the Inland Empire due to the area’s availability of land for development and new product.

The seller of the property, principals of Oak Valley Development Co. LLC, has owned the site since 1997 and obtained entitlements for the project in the first quarter of 2021. The seller will deliver the offsite and road infrastructure for the project in addition to building pads for Birtcher’s vertical development. That firm is also planning to build an 80-acre retail center adjacent to Birtcher Oak Valley Commerce Center by 2023, which will serve as an amenity for the project and the region.

QuadReal Property Group LP is Birtcher’s joint venture partner. Kidder Mathews’ Herb Grabell and David Burback are the seller’s listing brokers and the buyer’s advisory brokers. JLL’s Mike McCrary, Peter McWilliams, Patrick Wood and Scott Coyle served as the buyer’s listing brokers. Firms involved in the development will include HPA Architecture; Proactive Engineering Consultants West Inc.; Albert A. Webb Associates; Alta California Geotechnical Inc., and Southern California Geotechnical.

Inland Empire East Growth

John Ohanian, director of development for Oak Valley Development Co., said in prepared remarks that Calimesa is strategically poised to have growth similar to the City of Redlands, which grew from 1.6 million square feet of industrial space in 2000 to 28.1 million square feet today.

According to a Q1 2021 industrial market report by Lee & Associates, the Inland Empire East’s industrial vacancy rate was 4.28 percent in that quarter, with about 10.8 million square feet of space under construction. The Inland Empire East’s total inventory at that time was 244.2 million square feet.

READ ALSO: Top 5 Inland Empire Industrial Projects Under Construction

The report stated the industrial market grew in the first quarter due to continued demand for space, and large companies like Amazon and 3PLs as well as smaller manufacturers are all looking for space to meet the e-commerce demands of their customers. The challenge for interested tenants is finding available product in the area to meet the demand that is expected to continue growing throughout the year.

Last month, Shopoff Realty Investments and Artemis Real Estate Partners broke ground on the I-10 Logistics Center project, a more than 1.8 million-square-foot industrial development in Cherry Valley, Calif.., also within Riverside County in the Inland Empire East. The development will have two warehouse buildings that are slated for completion in the summer of 2022.