China-Based Firm Leases 191 KSF Inland Empire Warehouse

16477 Slover Ave. Image courtesy of Colliers

Molto Properties has fully leased a newly built logistics center in Fontana, Calif., to a China-based fulfillment firm, as e-commerce continues to fuel the Inland Empire’s buoyant industrial market.

Sell Below Cost USA committed to the 190,554-square-foot facility at 16477 Slover Ave., which was completed at the start of this year. Kevin McKenna and Greg Merrill of Colliers represented Molto in the lease transaction. Molto, a privately held developer based in suburban Chicago, partnered with LDC Industrial Realty to develop and build the state-of-the art project.

READ ALSO: Massive Inland Empire Logistics Hub to Break Ground

Located less than a mile south of Interstate 10, the facility features 36-foot warehouse clearance, a 185-foot all-concrete truck court and 24 dock high doors, along with nearly 7,000 square feet of office space. The site in the western Inland Empire is about 50 miles from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, with access to consumers across Southern California and within a six-hour drive of 55 million people.

Sell Below Cost USA will immediately occupy the fulfillment center, which will be used solely for general product storage and delivery, a Colliers representative told Commercial Property Executive. The tenant is a top 500 seller on Amazon.com, according to a description on online platform FindThisBest. The company specializes in a range of goods from home and kitchen items to industrial and scientific products.

Market Surge

Colliers noted in a statement that the logistics center received proposals from three fulfillment companies that deal with imports from China. The new lease comes as products pour into the nation’s largest container port complex at record levels. Container trade in 20-foot equivalent units was up 21 percent at Los Angeles and 32 percent at Long Beach compared to the first two months of 2020, according to the brokerage’s first-quarter market report for the Inland Empire.

Overall industrial vacancy in the region reached an historic low of 1.9 percent in the first quarter, tightening from 2.6 percent at the end of 2020, Colliers found. Vacancy in the Inland Empire West submarket has declined to 1.2 percent, with a scarcity of Class A warehouse and distribution space. Average monthly asking rents in the Inland Empire closed the first quarter at an all-time high of $0.76  triple-net per square foot, rising 1.4 percent over the previous quarter.

In another industrial commitment by a Chinese firm, Mega Lion Inc. signed a long-term lease for 132,423 square feet in Los Angeles County last September. The third-party logistics distributor, part of Shenzhen Hao Tong International Logistics, claimed the space at Golden Springs Business Center in Santa Fe Springs.

The move by Sell Below Cost USA comes after Ningbo, China-based JW Fulfillment Inc. leased half of 300 Cedar Lane, a recently built industrial project spanning nearly 700,000 square feet in Edison, N.J., this month.