REAL ESTATE : SDC Development Among Buyers of Union Pacific Land

When Union Pacific Corp. put its massive landholdings up for sale, Koll Co. wasn’t the only local developer that went shopping. (In the largest deal in its history, Koll bought a half-billion dollars worth of land and buildings from the railroad recently.)

SDC Development, a much smaller neighbor of Koll’s in Newport Beach, paid Union Pacific $16 million for an industrial park called Mira Loma Industrial Center in Riverside County.

SDC will sell some of the 183 acres at Mira Loma and build factories and warehouses on the rest. In all there will eventually be 3 million square feet of industrial space at the park with a value of more than $100 million.

“SDC considers the Mira Loma Industrial Center as the jewel of all Union Pacific Realty’s former properties,” Senior Vice President Jim Watson said in a press release.

The railroad decided last year to sell thousands of acres and dozens of buildings around the nation in an effort to boost its stock price. The real estate was worth a lot, but it wasn’t bringing in the big money quick enough to suit investors. Sure enough, the stock went up Tuesday when the Koll sale was announced.

If Koll bought most of the property, other companies like SDC managed to nick off a piece or two by getting a foot in the door before the big developer.

In fact, SDC said it wouldn’t have minded grabbing a few more pieces.

“There were some other things we were interested in,” said Charlie Kanne, vice president of SDC’s industrial division. “But Koll bought everything they had left.”

SDC operates mostly in the Southwest. Its biggest project is a joint venture to develop 345 acres it bought a few months ago in an industrial neighborhood near the Irvine Spectrum, a huge office and industrial park at the junction of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways in Irvine.

Construction on the Mira Loma park, meanwhile, is to begin by fall.

Compiled by Michael Flagg / Times staff writer