CBRE has negotiated the purchase of a 22,500-square-foot industrial facility for Bakehouse Bread Company. The property is located at 2520 N. Jackrabbit Ave. in Tucson. The asset commanded a sale price of $1.35 million.
Tim Healy and Bob DeLaney with CBRE’s Tucson office represented Bakehouse Bread Company in the transaction. The landlord, Michael and Janet Gompper, was represented by Steve Cohen with PICOR/Cushman & Wakefield.
We are incredibly excited about this next phase of growth, said John McKearney, who founded Bakehouse with his wife Nancy in 1996 after relocating to Tucson from Michigan. “The Greater Tucson community, and Arizona as a whole, has been supportive of our company from day one welcoming Bakehouse Bread Company with open arms. I think that response speaks to the quality of our product, but also says a great deal about the community’s desire to support local business, too.”
This purchase marks an expansion for the Tucson-based artisan-bread wholesaler, relocating its operations from its leased 7,875-square-foot facility located at 2550 N. Dragoon in Tucson. With the expansion of its physical footprint, Bakehouse Bread Company also has plans to expand its employee base to accommodate the growth of the company and better serve the needs of its expanding customer list.
First opened as retailer Village Bakehouse in June of 1996, the company grew rapidly. In 2001, founders John and Nancy McKearney decided to focus solely on the wholesale side of the operation, sold the retail locations, and Bakehouse Bread Company was born. The artisan-bread company now partners with many local restaurants, caterers, resorts, markets and institutions in the greater Tucson and Phoenix markets. Current notable clients include Fox Restaurant Concepts, the University of Arizona, Fry’s Food Stores and Trader Joe’s, among others.
This transaction really is indicative of the overall state of the industrial market in Greater Tucson as the metro area continues to be in need of functional industrial space,” said CBRE’s Healy. “John and Nancy have been looking to purchase a facility over the last several years; finding the right property to fit their needs was a challenge and really a matter of timing due to the lack of quality and available product online at any given time.”
A recent study by CBRE reports that 83 percent of industrial buildings in Greater Tucson are 14 years old or older. The challenge for new tenants/users or existing tenants/users that would like to expand is finding existing space that meets their requirement as a large portion of vacant buildings are becoming functionally obsolete. As this trend continues, desirable space will be leased or purchased, vacancy will decrease, rental rates will increase and speculative development will be required.
