In the fast-paced world of development here in the Valley of the Sun, it’s a huge advantage to be fast, and to be first.
Lincoln Property Company, fresh off a year in 2018 where it was named NAIOP Arizona’s Owner and Developer of the Year, found itself as the first developer in the new Park303 development along the Loop 303 in Glendale.
The company closed on a 71.5-acre parcel of land in Park303 for $11.7 million in September. LPC worked behind the scenes to secure the Planned Area Development (PAD) and help the City of Glendale with their annexation process.
“It’s kind of like anything, we had an idea and came across that first parcel and thought it was a great location,” said LPC’s executive vice president David Krumwiede.
Right as the pieces were falling into place to put more than 1 million square feet of industrial product on that initial 71.5 acres, another opportunity arose that would change just how big of an idea Park303 could be for LPC.
“The property to the north became available during the process of getting our first parcel ready to go, and we really liked that site, and we got to know it,” said Krumwiede. “The things that have held properties back over time are infrastructure, and also the PAD and annexation. We had solved it for the first piece of property and said we had a clear path to get to the additional land, so we took it.”
Forming a joint venture with Ken Roth and the Roth Development Corporation and Scottsdale Investment Management LLC, LPC purchased the 196 acres of land next to their original parcel in October, bringing their total to 265 acres.
With the additional land, the joint venture industrial park will span approximately one full mile along the Loop 303 between Bethany Home Road and Glendale Avenue, with the ability to support almost 4.5 million square feet of new industrial construction.
“Our company is continually looking for great sites to acquire. The Loop 303 corridor rises to that level of excellence as one of the best investment opportunities in the region and an exceptional place for forward-looking businesses to locate and grow their brands,” said Tim Grant, partner with Scottsdale Investment Management. “Park303 will serve as a best-in-class business environment within that space. We look forward to working with Lincoln Property Company and Roth Development in developing this property to its highest and best use.”
LPC and its partners, along with the City of Glendale, see tremendous economic potential in the Park303 site. The park sits within Glendale’s New Frontier District, an area along the Loop 303 designated by the City of Glendale for significant economic development. It is also one mile from the Northern Parkway, a new 12.5 mile, high-capacity roadway providing rapid connection between the Loop 303 and US 60/Grand Avenue. With this connection, users at Park303 can avoid common rush hour traffic delays on Interstate 10, helping them to meet critical morning and evening delivery requirements.
“The way it’s laid out, there are actually four, 70-acre parcels that are very similar, and they run east and west, which is great for industrial, because with an industrial building what you don’t want to have, generally, is west facing docks,” said Krumwiede. “So having the buildings lay out east to west is fantastic and it has a mile of freeway frontage. Users love to have freeway exposure, especially retail and e-commerce users. You see those buildings along the freeway and it’s basically free advertising.”
Phase I of Park303 will be a $115 million, Class A industrial development that will feature two buildings, one at 705,531 square feet and the second at 488,995 square feet. Krumwiede said he expects to break ground on the first two buildings in January and deliver approximately nine months later. The plan for the first two buildings is for them to be speculative products. Butler Design Group is the project architect for the first two buildings at Park303 Industrial Park and Hunter Engineering is the civil engineer.
Krumwiede said the LPC is actively talking to potential tenants, both for the initial spec buildings, but build-to-suit users for future phases.
The unique nature of having four, nearly identical parcels of land gives LPC a lot of flexibility on the size of buildings they do on the site. They can do two buildings, like on the first parcel, on each piece of land, or go with one large, 1.25 million square foot building on that property. Krumwiede said he is actively seeking out potential users who are looking for new buildings in one of the hottest industrial areas in the western United States.
“On our spec buildings, when we lease them, we’ll go with another one,” Krumwiede said. “And then we’ll move on to the build-to-suit. For build-to-suit users, that assurity of process, procedure and execution is incredibly important. The last thing a user wants is to focus on a site and then it’s non-deliverable, for whatever reason, whether it’s infrastructure, entitlements, ect., they need to know it’s deliverable.”
