Builder Speculating Big on Cucamonga Industry
Newport Beach-based Master Development Corp. said that it will build the largest single speculative industrial building ever constructed in the Inland Empire, a $32-million, 900,000-square-foot project called Origen Rail Center, in Rancho Cucamonga early next year.
The company said it plans to break ground in the first quarter and complete construction by the end of 2000. The project will occupy a 40-acre site at Arrow Route and Interstate 15. Origen Rail Center, so named because the project will include rail service, will be designed by Irvine-based Ware & Malcomb Architects Inc., with Master Development acting as general contractor.
Master Development said it will begin construction with few or no tenants signed up, in contrast with build-to-suit projects that developers start with tenants standing by.
Although at least one build-to-suit structure larger than its building has been completed in the Inland Empire, the company said, it believes its Origen development will be the largest speculative industrial project in the inland region, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The vast size of the project illustrates “the continued demand for space from 500,000-square-foot users,” said Bryan Bentrott, vice president of Master Development. Bentrott noted that developers in recent months have quickly leased speculative industrial buildings of 750,000, 675,000 and 606,000 square feet in Ontario. In addition, many national companies have occupied huge build-to-suit facilities in the Inland Empire in recent years, such as the 750,000-square-foot Toyota automotive parts warehouse in Ontario.
The large-scale facilities have helped make the Inland Empire, and the Ontario area in particular, a regional hub of warehousing and distribution.
Los Angeles County still boasts more industrial space overall, approximately 856 million square feet, compared with 258 million in Orange County and 211 million in the Inland Empire, according to Grubb & Ellis figures.
