By Roland Murphy for AZBEX
The West Valley’s push to add new industrial space will hear another contender in the mid-size division this week. Tolleson City Council will hold a site plan application hearing Nov. 8 on a proposal to build two tenant industrial office buildings on approximately seven acres at 8505 W. McDowell Road.
Both single-story buildings are planned for 52,318SF, according to the submitted site plans. Each building will have approximately 5,438SF of office area and 46,880SF of warehouse space. Both will feature four overhead doors at grade and two truck wells with eight overhead doors. Clear heights are planned for approximately 28 feet, and the buildings will share a paved 185-foot truck court. There is no plan for an outside storage area.
The staff stipulations attached to the City Manager’s recommendation for approval deal primarily with water, retention and drainage issues. A final drainage report will be required, as will a maintenance plan for the site’s proposed underground retention facilities.
The City Council agenda identifies the property owner as Martinic Engineering. The submitted architectural site plan identifies the owner as CTC Properties, Inc. The plan names Sun State Builders as the developer/contractor. Cotton Architecture + Design is the design firm. The civil engineer is Kbell Engineering, and the landscape planner is T.J. McQueen & Associates, Inc.
Marketing materials from leasing agent Mike Parker of CBRE says preleasing is in effect and that the development is expected for availability in Q3 2023.
Contacted by BEX Research staff, representatives of Sun State Builders said that due to the economic climate and market conditions, the current goal is to get the project shovel ready. Vertical development may take place when a tenant or buyer is in place.
Tolleson Industrial Snapshot
Being farther west than the Valley’s expanding industrial development core, Tolleson has not seen the same frenzied industrial construction pace as other West Valley cities. The DATABEX project database shows 11 industrial developments in the city since 2016, one of which is a 156.6KSF master plan with both industrial and hotel components.
Of those 11, one project – a 146KSF office/warehouse development at 85th Avenue and Van Buren Street – is in pre-construction. Another – a 79.4KSF child project of the master plan mentioned above – is actively under construction. The remaining projects have all been completed.
Not including the new Park Ten 83 proposal or the master plan, the remaining 10 projects have a total square footage of 3.6MSF and a total valuation of $381.5M.
Even though the national Industrial CRE market shows some signs of cooling, Metro Phoenix remains an exception. Q3 data from Transwestern shows an overall market vacancy rate of just 4.6% (17.7MSF), down from 5.2% (19.0MSF) for the same time in 2021. There are also 55.9MSF under construction, up from 2021’s Q3 total of 30.7MSF.
Asking rents have also increased noticeably, hitting $10.77/SF in Q3 of this year versus $8.70 in Q3 2021.
Industrial real estate experts have also noted an ongoing tightness in available space for small-to-mid-sized users – those looking for space in the 50KSF-250KSF range. While the builders and occupants in the 500KSF and larger range may get most of the fanfare, it is expected an increasing percentage of actual activity will take place in the middle tier as the market continues to advance.
As suitable land nearer to the metro core becomes harder to find and build upon, more development in outlying municipalities like Tolleson is a reasonable expectation as long as the market retains its robustness.
