Fort James Corp. Pre-Leases 402,450 SF at Rivergate Corporate Center

PORTLAND-Georgia-Pacific subsidiary Fort James Corp. has pre-leased 400,000 sf of a 607,000-sf building that Trammell Crow Company will develop in the Port of Portland’s Rivergate Industrial District on behalf of Multi-Employer Property Trust, a $3-billion collective investment fund whose primary beneficiaries are union pension funds. Fort James Corp., an international consumer products company, is consolidating from 500,000 sf in two Rivergate buildings owned by Rreef.

The 607,000-sf building, scheduled to break ground this month, is the second phase of a 1.1-million-sf development known as Rivergate Corporate Center that Trammell Crow is developing for MEPT. MEPT inked a $4-million, 55-year ground lease for the 23-acre, 488,000-sf first phase in December 2001. In October 2002, MEPT signed a $5.4-million, 55-year lease for another 27 acres where Georgia-Pacific’s building will be constructed. Trammell Crow SVP Dirk Otis will oversee the development.

Local real estate sources at that time told GlobeSt.com that MEPT wouldn’t have OK’d the extra land acquisition–given the fact no tenants had yet signed for the first phase–unless it had a user ready to take the space. In December, when the first phase secured its first tenant, TCC’s Dave Ellis acknowledged that a 400,000-sf user was close to signing on for the second phase.