Rockefeller Group, Matan Cos. to Develop 5 MSF Logistics Project

Port 460 Logistics Center will rise on more than 500 acres in the Hampton Roads metro area. Image courtesy of Rockefeller Group

A joint venture partnership of Rockefeller Group and the Matan Cos. plans to develop a $300 million, 5 million-square-foot industrial and logistics center in Suffolk, Va., in the Hampton Roads region.

The site of the planned 540-acre Port 460 Logistics Center is zoned for heavy industrial, logistics, advanced manufacturing, life science and warehouse uses. The project’s first phase is scheduled to deliver five buildings totaling 2.4 million square feet, beginning in 2025.

A proposed development plan by Matan indicates that the five buildings in the first phase will include four cross-dock buildings, the largest of which will be about 1 million square feet. Aanother will span 429,000 square feet and two facilities will measure 344,000 square feet. The fifth building will be a rear-load facility measuring 242,000 square feet. In addition to further industrial space, phase two will add about 460,000 square feet of retail space fronting on U.S. 460, a Rockefeller Group spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive.

The site is bounded approximately by U.S. 460 to the northeast, U.S. 58 to the southeast, State Route 638 to the south and State Route 604 to the west. Suffolk is roughly 20 miles west-southwest of Norfolk, Va., and various Port of Virginia facilities, in addition to the Norfolk Southern’s Portlock and Lambert’s Point rail yards.

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The developers noted that the Port of Virginia currently handles more than 3.5 million TEUs annually and next year will complete multibillion-dollar infrastructure improvements.

JLL has been named as the development’s exclusive leasing agent.

Long-term strength

The Hampton Roads industrial space market is in a lull right now, with negative net absorption in the third quarter, a slight rise in overall vacancy and below-average deliveries, according to a research study from JLL. Nonetheless, the report attributes this to normal fluctuations in the market and predicts that “ongoing demand in a historically underbuilt market will support continued, substantial industrial development for years to come.”

One driver of this, JLL says, is steady increases in port traffic, while another is rather less traditional, “a burgeoning offshore wind sector.”