BILL CLARKSON, CCIM Commercial & Investment Specialist

Brokers seek large tenants as new Tempe industrial park breaks ground

Brokers seek large tenants as new Tempe industrial park breaks ground

  • By: BILL CLARKSON, CCIM
  • Posted: October 25, 2022

Article Originally Posted by PhoenixBusinessJournal on October 24, 2022 
 

A construction fence now surrounds a clean slate of dirt to build on in south Tempe.

Developer ViaWest broke ground Monday on the Sight Logistics Park, which will replace Insight Enterprises' former headquarters at 6820 S. Harl Ave. just off Interstate 10. The park will include two buildings of 201,187 and 155,717 square feet.

ViaWest partner Danny Swancey said his firm started looking at the site in early 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic pushed back a timeline to purchase it. The developer ended up closing on the site in early 2021, buying it from Insight Enterprises (Nasdaq: NSIT) for $11 million.

The park has the ability to accommodate all industrial users from last-mile distribution to advanced manufacturing, Swancey said.

Sight Logistics Park will be built by Willmeng Construction, designed by McCall & Associates and marketed by Colliers International. To start the process, contractors had to demolish Insight's 102,000-square-foot headquarters. The dirt now has been smoothed over for construction to get started.

Tenant demand

So far, no tenants have signed leases to join the park, but Colliers' Rob Martensen is busy fielding requests, he said. Those requests have mostly been from distribution-related users, including a couple near the park, but he declined to name those companies. Swire Coca-Cola, Bunzl Distribution USA and Miller Edge are a few of the neighboring tenants along Harl Avenue near the planned park.

"Tenant demand is stronger than it's ever been," Martensen said. "We've already got multiple proposals on this thing and we've barely broken ground."

To start, Martensen and his team are marketing to users to take up larger spaces in the park's two buildings. The buildings could be divided up to accommodate multiple, 30,000 and 40,000-square-foot users, but the plan is to first go after one or two big users.

"We're open to all options. At this point in the game, it's pretty early on, so we are trying to hold out for the bigger tenants," he said. "We expect [interest] to increase [as construction progresses]."

Martensen said the hope is for the project to complete construction by next July. The total valuation for the three permits issued by the city of Tempe for the demolition and new building shells is more than $30 million.