Ingram Micro Leases Buildings for Headquarters : Transaction: The Santa Ana distributor of computer products signs an $18-million agreement. It is one of the county’s largest such deals of recent years.

Ingram Micro Inc., the large distributor of computer products, 7signed an $18-million lease for 215,000 square feet of space in two “build-to-suit” structures here that will be the company’s headquarters and warehouse.

It was one of the largest leases--in terms of space--signed recently in Orange County.

Catellus Development Corp. will begin construction of the two-story buildings in May and is scheduled to finish in March, 1992. Catellus owns the 123-acre PacifiCenter Santa Ana at Edinger and Grand avenues near the Costa Mesa Freeway, where the buildings will be constructed.

Build-to-suit transactions--where the developer does not build until he has signed up a tenant--are likely to become more common in the county’s overbuilt office and industrial market. Many buildings had previously been constructed on speculation, with no specific tenant in mind, leading to a wave of overbuilding, high vacancy rates and low rents.

Ingram Micro’s business is growing fast. The company said it needs more space. It will be leaving three leased office buildings around Santa Ana, including corporate headquarters at 2801 Yale St., totaling about 80,000 square feet. The new building will have 115,000 square feet of office space and 100,000 square feet for the new warehouse and distribution center. The company employs 700 people in Santa Ana.

“Finding adequate work space for our people has been a challenge,” Ingram Micro Chairman Chip Lacy said.

Ingram Micro, formerly known as Ingram Micro D, is the nation’s largest distributor of computer products. The privately held company said it had sales last year of $1.45 billion.

The company did not look outside Orange County in its 1 1/2-year search for a new headquarters but studied several sites around the county, including some existing buildings.

“There were a lot of choices for them, but Ingram Micro would have had to alter their requirements” to fit into them, said Bruce Ibbetson, Catellus’ project manager.

Sources said Catellus was eager to land Ingram Micro and negotiated a good deal, with rents lower than average. Neither company would detail the 10-year lease.

“Ingram Micro is a big enough tenant that Catellus wanted them a lot,” said Bradley Schroth, a Grubb & Ellis Co. broker who represented Ingram Micro.

Catellus, until recently part of Santa Fe Pacific Corp., the railroad holding company, has been developing the PacifiCenter business park for more than five years. With the market soft for all types of real estate, including research and industrial space--a combination of light manufacturing and unassuming office space--Catellus had a strong incentive to land a big tenant such as Ingram Micro, real estate experts said.

In August, Catellus finished three research and development buildings at the park that still lack tenants, although the company said it is close to some deals.

That is not an extraordinarily long time to find renters for a new research and development building, experts said, but it was another sign of the soft market that probably helped persuade Catellus to offer Ingram Micro a good deal.

Already in the park is a McDonnell-Douglas electronics unit in a 365,000-square-foot building next to the Ingram Micro site.

While the park is not one of the county’s more prestigious addresses, it appeals to such companies as Ingram Micro because it offers proximity to the office towers around John Wayne Airport and to the blue-collar neighborhoods in that part of southeastern Santa Ana.

Catellus was the old real estate development arm of the Santa Fe Pacific railroad but recently parted ways with the railroad when it spun off and became a public company. It owns about 2 million acres in California, most of it old railroad land.

The railroad had been selling land, but now Catellus said it will hold onto the land and the buildings it has developed--mostly industrial structures--to strengthen its portfolio. The company held about $3 billion in land and buildings last year and had revenues, through the third quarter, of $110 million.

It is also developing the PacifiCenter Tustin on 45 acres across the Costa Mesa Freeway from the Santa Ana project.