ViaWest Group Enters Salt Lake City Industrial Market

ViaWest Group has entered the Salt Lake City industrial market with the purchase of an 18-acre development site that already contains a 37,000-square-foot industrial building completed in 2016.

The seller and price paid for the property were not disclosed.

Cushman & Wakefield advised ViaWest Group on the acquisition. Phillip Eilers, director at Cushman & Wakefield, represented ViaWest Group and James Merrill with cRc Nationwide represented the seller.

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ViaWest Group, a Phoenix-based commercial real estate investment, development and property management firm, plans to split the existing lot at 3255 W. 500 S., creating a separate 11-acre parcel where it will construct a 171,600-square-foot Class A speculative industrial building.

3255 W. 500 S., Salt Lake City

The company’s most recent projects have been in Arizona. Earlier this month, ViaWest Group broke 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. In January, the company started construction on Converge Logistics Center, a three-building, 512,710-square-foot campus in Chandler, Ariz.

Growing market

Tom Glissmeyer, market leader (Mountain West) for Via West Group said in a prepared statement the new building will meet the needs in the market by providing a modern industrial building with excess paved yard for storage. He said the existing 37,000-square-foot building is highly functional and will have several acres of yard for outside storage, which is in high demand but hard to find.

The site is in a heavy industrial-zoned area (M-2) that is near major highways including Interstates 80, 215 and 15 as well as SR 201 and the Mountain View Corridor, a key local area for distribution. The property is also close to the Salt Lake City International Airport, which recently completed Phase 1 of a $4 billion renovation. Downtown Salt Lake City is within a few miles of the site.

Salt Lake City’s industrial market has been growing in recent years, with absorption by the fourth quarter of 2021 more than doubling the previous record in 2019. JLL’s Industrial Insight Q4 2021 report stated the busy year ended with “record absorption, double-digit year-over-year rent growth, the largest development pipeline on record and a further decline in total vacancy.”

JLL said the Airport submarket dominated the region’s industrial market in 2021 with the highest leasing and absorption, and an active pipeline with the most product under construction. But the report noted 2021 also saw an uptick in development along the I-215 belt route and 2200 West. High demand and limited availability are expected to continue to push rents higher this year.