Autonomous driving company Waymo has inked a lease for at least 65,000 square feet of industrial space at Central Logistics Center in Phoenix.
Waymo and entities linked to developer ViaWest Group entered into a more than five-year lease agreement in May, according to a memorandum of lease filed with the Maricopa County Recorder's Office. Waymo has the option to extend the term for another five years. Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana signed the agreement for the tenant side, according to the memorandum of lease.
In an email response Tuesday afternoon to the Business Journal, a Waymo spokesman confirmed the deal.
"Last week we announced that Waymo One is expanding in downtown Phoenix by offering rider-only trips to Trusted Testers for the first time. We’re excited to support that expansion by signing a new five-year lease for operational space on [South] 3rd Street, which we’re expecting to move into starting in later this year," the spokesman said.
Last February, ViaWest started an expansion at Central Logistics Center, which included two new buildings — a 94,146-square-foot class A industrial building that could be divided for two tenants and a 71,555-square-foot warehouse adjacent to the existing cold storage facility — as well as the renovation of a 76,301-square-foot freezer storage facility.
Phoenix-based ViaWest bought the site, which is south of the downtown Warehouse District, at 111 E. Buckeye Road in June of 2019 for $18.6 million, according to previous reporting by the Business Journal.
ViaWest declined comment for this story, directing the Business Journal to CBRE Group Inc.'s Evan Koplan, who represented Waymo in its lease. Koplan could not be immediately reached for comment.
CBRE's John Werstler, Cooper Fratt and Tanner Ferrandi are the listing brokers for the Central Logistics Center. Fratt declined comment to the Business Journal for this story.
The memorandum of lease said that Waymo will take Lot 1 and Lot 5 at the Central Logistics Center. According to CBRE's listing flier, Lot 1 totals about 30,000 square feet while the size of Lot 5 ranges from 35,000 to 71,555 square feet.
Waymo, which is based in Mountain View, California, and owned by Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL), has been carrying members of the public in its vehicles through a 50-square-mile area in Chandler, Tempe and Mesa since October 2020. In May, the company officially opened up its Phoenix service to a small group of test riders after announcing its expansion to the capital city in March.