Brookfield Properties Plans Inland Empire Industrial Project

North Sierra Distribution Center. Rendering courtesy of Brookfield Properties

Brookfield Properties is expanding its Southern California footprint with the acquisition of a 15-acre development site in the Inland Empire West submarket.

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The site, at the northeast corner of Sierra and Casa Grande avenues in Fontana, Calif., represents “a rare, shovel-ready opportunity” to construct a 332,000-square-foot Class A distribution building, according to Brookfield.

North Sierra Distribution Center will feature 36-foot clear heights, 6,000 square feet of office space, a fully secured 185-foot truck court and 38 dock-high doors. It’s expected to be completed in the spring of 2022.

A Brookfield spokesperson did not reply to Commercial Property Executive’s request for additional information.

Rebuilding phase

Brookfield noted that over the past 12 months, the company has acquired 16 properties in Southern California totaling more than 3.5 million square feet, bringing its portfolio in the region to 39 assets encompassing more than 6 million square feet.

Also in Fontana, Calif., Brookfield broke ground on its Slover Elm Commerce Center last month. The 192,000-square-foot, rear-load logistics property will feature 32-foot clear heights, 5,700 square feet of office space, a secured 185-foot truck court and 23 dock-high doors.

Brookfield VP of Investments Paul Jones noted that the Slover Elm asset is the company’s first spec logistics project in Southern California in a couple of years.

Brookfield’s Southern California activity is part of the company’s push to rebuild its national development platform after having sold IDI Logistics for a reported $3.5 billion to Ivanhoé Cambridge.

The Inland Empire West industrial market has an average overall vacancy of just 2.8 percent and saw nearly 6.4 million square feet of net absorption in 2020, on an inventory of 303.2 million square feet, according to a fourth-quarter report from Cushman & Wakefield. Almost 8.9 million square feet of space was under construction at year’s end.

Overall weighted average net rent for warehouse-distribution space was $0.71, also according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Barely a month ago, Brookfield Asset Management Inc. announced that it had made an offer to acquire the remaining shares of Brookfield Property Partners, the parent company of Brookfield Properties. The cost of taking Brookfield Property Partners private reportedly would be about $5.9 billion.