The development, known as Voit Brea Business Park, will rise on a 30-acre parcel located north of Lambert Road off Berry Street. When completed, the project will consist of 16 buildings, ranging in size from 13,000 sf to 51,000 sf.

Pre-marketing has already begun on the buildings, with ground-breaking slated for June. Voit already has received several offers from potential buyers, says Mitch Zehner of Voit Commercial Brokerage's Anaheim office. "We expect at least half of the buildings will be sold to existing Brea users who will be expanding into larger buildings and upgrading their facilities by moving into the new state-of-the-art Voit Brea Business Park," Zehner says.

The news of the ground-breaking comes on the heels of a recent report that Orange County's manufacturing sector is experiencing a slowdown. The study, published by Chapman University, reports that production, employment and new orders in the county have all declined significantly in this year's first quarter. Chapman's seasonally adjusted index that measures manufacturing activity in the county has dropped from 52.7 in the fourth quarter of 2000 to 43.7 in the first quarter of 2001.