SAN MARCOS, CA—Finding land at a price that will allow capital-intense ground-up creative-industrial projects to pencil generally requires locating larger parcels where costs can be spread out over a sizable square footage, RAF Pacifica Group principal Adam Robinson tells GlobeSt.com. As we recently reported, on the heels of its recent development activity in the Carlsbad submarket of San Diego, the firm has acquired 15.65 acres of land here on which it plans to build a four-building, creative-industrial campus totaling 212,000 square feet. Robinson said this would be RAF Pacifica's first ground-up spec industrial development in San Marcos. We spoke exclusively with Robinson about the industrial market in San Marcos, whether there's room for more ground-up creative industrial in this market and other San Diego submarkets that are ripe for this type of development.

GlobeSt.com: How would you characterize the industrial market in San Marcos?

Robinson: Historically, San Marcos really hasn't been an institutional market, but it has been a very strong industrial market. It's not master-planned like Carlsbad or portions of Oceanside, but the college market is growing, and there are new apartments around [California State University San Marcos], which is bringing more Carlsbad-ish-type tenants into that market. The majority of our buildings are in Carlsbad, but we found a piece of land in San Marcos that would be perfect for what we want to do. We own other properties in San Marcos that are doing well, and they recently built a new high school there. We are really excited about this project; there are not a lot of large land parcels left in San Marcos, and this one will be good one for us.