Clarion Partners LLC Joint Venture Breaks Ground on Los Angeles Facility

South Bay Logistics Center. Image courtesy of Newmark

CT Realty and Clarion Partners LLC have broken ground on South Bay Logistics Center, a 145,840-square-foot industrial facility in Carson, Calif. Public records show the 6.6-acre parcel traded last August for $11.2 million. The single-tenant, free-standing development located in the Gardena/110 Corridor submarket is slated for a fall completion. Newmark will be handling leasing.  

The project is CT Realty’s first development in South Bay, according to CommercialEdge information. The company’s presence spans across nine national markets and eight tier-one logistics markets. In September, CT Realty partnered with PGIM Real Estate for the construction of an Inland Empire industrial park expected to total 4.4 million square feet at full build-out.

South Bay Logistics Center specs

The facility will come online at 333 W. Gardena Blvd., roughly 2 miles southeast of the city center. Upon completion, the building will feature a 36-foot clear height, 25 dock high doors and an ESFR sprinkler system, as well as a two-story office space totaling 5,500 square feet. The property will also include a 144-foot secure truck yard and more than 140 parking spaces.

The property is some 14 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, just east of Interstate 110 and north of Gardena Freeway. Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are both some 14 miles south, while Los Angeles International Airport is 11 miles northwest, marking a very favorable location for e-commerce-related activities.

South Bay Logistics Center will be able to reach seven million people within a one-hour delivery window, according to Newmark. CT Realty Senior Vice President Chris Coetzee also said, in a prepared statement, that the facility could provide parcels for nearly 15 million people within a 50-mile radius.

Newmark Managing Director Danny Williams, Executive Managing Director Barry Hill and Vice Chairman John McMillan are the property’s leasing agents. Williams and McMillan are also in charge of leasing at two industrial properties totaling more than 346,000 square feet in Vernon, Calif.

Low supply, high demand

According to a recent CommercialEdge report, there were some 11.7 million square feet of industrial product under construction across metro L.A. as of January, accounting for only 1.7 percent of total stock, below the 2.6 percent U.S. average.

Limited supply paired with surging demand is leading to increasing rents in the area, lower vacancies and higher sale prices. According to the same CommercialEdge report, metro L.A. industrial rents were up 7.2 percent year-over-year through January, ranking third among major U.S. markets, behind only neighboring Inland Empire (8.1 percent) and South Carolina (7.7 percent).  

The Gardena/110 Corridor submarket had a 1.9 percent vacancy rate and some 530,000 square feet of space in the pipeline as of the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a Newmark report.