Work underway on expansion of Golden Triangle industrial park

Trammell Crow Co. is doing site work for a roughly 652,000-square-foot building in the Golden Triangle Logistics Center. The new facility, at the corner of Washburn and Pecos roads, just south of Shadow Creek Golf Course, is slated to be finished during the first half of 2022, according to a news release.

It is the third of seven planned buildings at the 127-acre business park, said Tom Bak, senior managing director of Trammell Crow’s office in Newport Beach, California.

The latest round of construction also comes after an investment firm bought Golden Triangle’s first phase, which spans more than 2 million square feet, for more than $335 million.

Fueled heavily by the rise of e-commerce, warehouse developers have been on a yearslong construction spree in Southern Nevada, especially in North Las Vegas. Big chunks of land have been available there at relatively low prices, and officials have expanded the city’s infrastructure, enabling more big-box facilities to come out of the ground.

Among others, online retail giant Amazon, sports apparel firm Fanatics and baby products maker The Honest Co. have opened distribution centers in North Las Vegas in recent years.

Market is ‘on fire’

Overall, Southern Nevada is seeing record amount of industrial development, and preleasing has been “pretty high,” said John Stater, Las Vegas research manager for brokerage Colliers International.

About 7.8 million square feet of industrial space was under construction in the valley in the second quarter, he said.

“The market’s on fire,” Stater said. “It’s unbelievable.”

As he sees it, the industrial sector has been “the one bright spot” in commercial real estate since the pandemic hit.

People were already shopping more online before the public health crisis upended daily life last year. But after the virus outbreak left masses of people working from home or rarely venturing out for fear of getting infected, and stores temporarily closed, internet shopping only ramped up.

Trammell Crow, which was hired to develop Golden Triangle, announced plans for the 2.7 million-square-foot industrial park in fall 2019 .

Bak said recently that the first building was leased to Whitebox, an e-commerce-services firm, and that part of the second building was leased to Brothers Trading Co., a grocery distributor.

He said leasing negotiations are underway for the third building too.

Best in ‘virtually every market’

Real estate investment firm Clarion Partners bought the first phase of Golden Triangle in April for $335.6 million, property records indicate.

Washington Capital Management President and CEO Cory Carlson, whose investment advisory firm sold the properties on behalf of the former owner, the Operating Engineers Local 12 pension fund, confirmed the transaction.

A Clarion representative was unavailable to comment this week.

Colliers announced Thursday that it was hired as the listing brokerage for the recently purchased portfolio, saying the complex, Golden Triangle Industrial Park, spans more than 2.4 million square feet and is 95 percent leased with 24 tenants.

Carlson, who indicated the pension fund also owns the 127-acre expansion of Golden Triangle, said the industrial sector is doing “very well” in Las Vegas.

According to Carlson, it’s the best type of commercial real estate “in virtually every market,” mainly because of e-commerce.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.