High Desert Next Frontier for Industrial Real Estate

By Mitch Deacon, Daily Press, Victorville, Calif.

Jun. 16–ONTARIO — Commercial real estate developers and city officials are promoting the High Desert as the next frontier in industrial growth, mostly in warehousing and distribution centers to services the growing international commerce at the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The proposed intermodal rail facility at Southern California Logistics Airport is expected to drive industrial development in the Victor Valley.

“The largest railyard in Southern California is Hobart in Los Angeles, the next largest is in Colton-Fontana, and both are at capacity and cannot grow anymore,” said Victorville Mayor Terry Caldwell this week at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

” We a re d e s i g n i n g t h e Victorville intermodal facility for a million and a half lifts a year. That’s as big as the Hobart and Colton-Fontana facilities are today,” he said.

Developers are beginning to focus more attention to the area, particularly those interested in industrial facilities with rail access.

“We see a dwindling supply of rail-served land in the Inland Empire, and while there are not a lot of industrial users who need rail, there are some who have to have it,” said Graham Tingler, president of Space Center Inc., at a conference in Ontario sponsored by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties.

Space Center developed a 450,000-square-foot build-to-suit distribution center for M&M Mars at Foxborough Industrial Park.

While the company has acquired more land in the High Desert, they plan to continue developing build-to-suit projects.

“We are not going to build spec at this point,” Tingler said.

Negotiations between BNSF and Victorville over the proposed intermodal facility are still under way.

“I am hopeful that the negotiations would be completed by the end of the summer,” Caldwell said.

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