ViaWest Breaks Ground on Central Phoenix Project

Airport 48 Industrial. Image courtesy of ViaWest Group

Phoenix-based ViaWest Group has broken ground on Airport 48 Industrial, a 146,526-square-foot, Class A building that will sit on one of the last remaining infill parcels in Central Phoenix.

The development team also includes Stevens-Leinweber Construction as general contractor, McCall & Associates as project architect and Kimley-Horn as civil engineer. Delivery is slated for the fourth quarter of 2022.

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The groundbreaking came on the heels of another ViaWest project debut. In January, the developer started construction on Converge Logistics Center, a three-building, 512,710-square-foot campus in Chandler, Ariz. The developer leased the 28.6-acre site from Kyrene School District in March 2021.

Targeting mid-size tenants

Airport 48 Industrial is taking shape on a 10-acre site at 3232 S. 48th St., in an Opportunity Zone within the Phoenix South submarket. CommercialEdge data shows ViaWest acquired the development site in 2021 for some $4.6 million. Upon its completion, the warehouse will feature a 28-foot clear height and 130-foot truck court.

The facility is already 45 percent preleased as national distributor SouthernCarlson signed a long-term contract for 65,008 square feet at the property in February. NAI Horizon’s Isy Sonabend and Drew Eisen, the project’s exclusive leasing brokers, negotiated the deal on behalf of the landlord. Sonabend explained, in a prepared statement, that Airport 48 is one of the area’s few options for mid-size users.

The property is roughly 8 miles southeast of downtown Phoenix and 2 miles from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, just north of Interstate 10. The location is near CapRock’s 3.4 million-square-foot logistics campus that represents the metro’s largest speculative industrial project.

More industrial construction underway in The Valley

Greater Phoenix remains one of the nation’s hottest markets for industrial development. According to a recent CommercialEdge report, the metro had more than 35 million square feet of space underway as of January, representing 12.5 percent of stock. If planned projects are also added, the result marks a whopping 31.4 percent of stock.

Many of the planned developments are very close to groundbreaking. One of them is The HUB @ 202, a 1.5-million-square-foot industrial project in Mesa, Ariz.; Wharton Industrial intends to start work on the industrial campus in the second quarter of 2022.

Also in the second quarter of 2022, Lovett Industrial will break ground on NorthPark Logistics Center, a two-building, 1.7 million-square-foot project in Glendale, Ariz. The development will take shape within the 1,340-acre Woolf Logistics Center, just north of Luke Air Force Base.