CRG, the real estate development and investment arm of Chicago-based Clayco, announced today it is developing The Cubes at Glendale, a 335-acre industrial park featuring 5.5 million square feet at the intersection of Reems Road and Northern Avenue in Glendale, Arizona.
The project, which is a strategic joint-venture partnership with Phoenix-based Bird Dog Industrial, will begin construction of a 1.2 million-square-foot speculative warehouse on March 1. The firm closed on the first 260-acre parcel of land for the development with a second expected to close in the second quarter.
“We’ve watched Phoenix closely waiting for the right opportunity to expand our platform here,” said Shawn Clark, president of CRG. “This site gives us a unique competitive advantage in the market to offer next generation facilities at a quality and size that we expect will get the attention of several national users.”
CRG currently has an active pipeline of over 25 projects valued at more than $3 billion in high barrier to entry logistics markets throughout the country. This project, which went from contract to close in 88 days, is the first of many opportunities slated for the firm in the Southwest, Clark said.
“Phoenix’s West Valley is a dynamic industrial market,” said Mark Sonnenberg, founder and president of Bird Dog Industrial. “In addition to logistics and e-commerce fulfillment centers, the West Valley is home to large-scale manufacturers, food and beverage processors, pharmaceutical and medical supply distributors and data centers. The Cubes at Glendale was conceived with this user diversity in mind with multiple opportunities for speculative development, build-to-suits and shovel-ready lot sales.”
JLL Vice President John Lydon represented CRG in the land acquisition and JLL Managing Director Tony Lydon represented the seller. John Lydon and Bill Honsaker, managing director with JLL, will be handling the leasing at The Cubes at Glendale.
“We’re excited to be marketing this unique project,” Honsaker said. “Phoenix attracted approximately 22 million square feet of industrial commitments in 2020, with around 75 percent of that activity happening in the West Valley. The Cubes at Glendale will respond to that demand with site and building flexibility and scalability, along with robust utility infrastructure that will appeal to the most sophisticated users – including operations with heavy manufacturing requirements.”
According to JLL research, Phoenix’s West Valley is an industrial hotspot that continues to surge due to strong labor, strategic location, business-friendly fundamentals and the accelerated demand the pandemic has placed on sectors such as e-commerce, medical supplies and food and beverage.
The Cubes at Glendale is strategically located within the Loop 303 Corridor and near the newly-constructed Northern Parkway, providing multiple access points for trucks and employees. The project’s first development is a 1.2 million-square-foot speculative warehouse featuring 40-foot clear heights, 213 dock doors, 50-foot by 56-foot column spacing and parking capable of handling 740 car parking spaces and 470 trailer parking spaces.
“Parking for both cars and trucks has become one of the most important building specifications for modern users,” Sonnenberg said. “One of the main reasons we focused on this site over others was its size and lack of existing easements or interior roads, providing maximum development flexibility to meet users’ specific needs.”
CRG’s parent company Clayco will serve as the builder, while enterprise partner Lamar Johnson Collaborative is the architect for the first warehouse.
“Our vertically integrated platform gives us a distinct advantage for projects like this,” Clark said. “Once we identify a good opportunity in a market, we can move quickly to understand the work involved and the pricing needed to make that project work. The Cubes at Glendale is really the perfect example of our platform working, and we look forward to identifying future opportunities in Phoenix and across the Southwest.”
