ACS Takes Building at New Industrial Park

GRESHAM, OR-Affiliated Computer Services Inc. of Dallas has leased one of the first three buildings to be developed at Gateway Corporate Center, a new 38-acre industrial park on Northeast 181st Avenue near Interstate 84. GVA Kidder Mathews is developing the eventual seven-building, 650,000-sf park on behalf of San Francisco-based McMorgan & Co., a Taft-Hartley multi-employer pension fund manager.ACS, a publicly traded IT services company, leased the park’s 43,379-sf Building B for use as an in-bound call center for supporting products it services for clients. The lease term is five years. ACS real estate executives Kent Veenendaal and Derek Nash tell GlobeSt.com that about 33,000 sf will be built out for call center use initially, with the remainder to be used as storage. The new location will replace an older existing facility ACS leases on Southeast Gideon Street, says Nash. Steve Klein and George Slevin of GVA Kidder Mathews in Portland represented McMorgan & Co. Paul Carlson with Cushman & Wakefield represented ACS. The value of the lease was not released by the parties involved and not otherwise available. The park is one of the most visible in the Columbia Corridor, bound on three sides by Interstate 84, Sandy Boulevard and 181st Street. McMorgan & Co. acquired the land for the development in early 2003 for $6.7 million, or $4.04 per sf. When they first began planning the park, Klein tells GlobeSt.com the expectation was that interested tenants would require an office build out of 30% or less. As it turns out, however, prospective tenants are seeking closer to a 50% office build out, in part because of the building’s visibility and convenient access.Klein tells GlobeSt.com that ACS liked the location for a call center because it is located right off the freeway, and two bus lines run very near the property. In addition, he says that the area is well serviced with power and fiber optics because the area is already home to a Boeing outpost and a US Bank service center, two big employers in the area.Looking ahead, Klein says interest in the other two buildings — one 41,801 sf and the other 71,750 sf — is such that the tentative plan is to break ground for an additional building this summer. As well, because of the type of tenants it is attracting — the ACS building will house some 400 employees — a decision has been made to replace a small piece of the industrial capacity with retail space. “With the project being right between two of the largest employers in the area, we have received a lot of interest from delis, banks and coffee shops,” says Klein.