ProLogis Developing Office, Industrial Park in Torrance
ProLogis Trust, a major developer and operator of distribution facilities, said it will build an approximately 1-million-square-foot industrial and office park in Torrance.
The $50-million project, ProLogis Park Torrance, will rise on a nearly 50-acre parcel on Van Ness Avenue south of 190th Street. ProLogis purchased the property from Nissin Food Co., which moved its operations to Buena Park.
The development will add to the approximately 4 million square feet of industrial space under construction in the South Bay. But much of the new construction is already spoken for or will be occupied fairly rapidly in the face of low vacancy rates and the steady expansion of local companies, said Jim Biondi, a real estate broker in the Torrance office of Grubb & Ellis.
“It’s a very viable project . . . because of the demand and the lack of supply,” Biondi said of the ProLogis development.
Space is in particularly short supply in Torrance, where a new generation of high-technology firms has filled much of the space left behind by the shrinking aerospace industry. During the first quarter of this year, the vacancy rate for industrial space in Torrance was a meager 3.7%, according to Grubb & Ellis.
“We view those [nearby] companies as very strong prospects” to become tenants, said ProLogis regional marketing executive Pat Maloney.
Unlike most of its projects, which are primarily distribution and warehouses facilities, ProLogis Park Torrance will be designed to accommodate office as well as industrial tenants, said Larry Harmsen, who oversees the company’s Southern California operations.
“We build a flexible . . . building that can be utilized by both types of customers,” Harmsen said.
The Torrance facility is part of a string of recent new projects the company has undertaken as it expands its holdings across Southern California. The Denver-based firm currently owns and operates about 13.5-million square feet of industrial and commercial space in the region.
The firm recently agreed to lease a 762,000-square-foot warehouse it is building in Ontario to Santa Monica-based EToys Inc., an Internet toy seller.
