Central Garden & Pet Co. Inks 258,125-SF Warehouse Lease

PORTLAND,OR-Central Garden & Pet Co. has leased 258,125 sf at Rivergate Corporate Center, a three-building, 1.1-million-sf complex developed and managed by Trammell Crow Co. The owner is Multi-Employer Property Trust, a $4.4-billion collective investment fund whose primary beneficiaries are union pension funds.The long-term lease, which commences in October, will be an expansion and consolidation of Central Garden & Pet Co.’s existing Portland and Seattle distribution centers. In Portland, the company will be vacating 94,010 sf at Commerce Park Clackamas.At Rivergate Corporate Center, Central Garden & Pet is leasing about 70% of the 358,000-sf Building A within Rivergate Corporate Center I, a two-building, 490,000-sf piece of the larger development that boasts 35-foot clear heights, rail capability and outside storage area. Building A was completed in 2003. It was vacant until a few months ago, when Ryder Integrated Logistics leased about 80,000 sf. Building B is occupied by Schneider Resources Inc. (50,000 sf) and Georgia-Pacific (67,000 sf). G-P expanded into RCC I after leasing all of RCC II, a 605,000-sf building. The warehouse lease rate on most of these deals is believed to be in the low $0.30s per sf per month.”This is another great example of ‘flight to quality’–in other words we’re seeing a lot of companies moving from older, less functional facilities to newer, state-of-the-art facilities in order to increase operational efficiencies without significantly increasing their overall real estate costs,” says Trammell Crow SVP Dave Ellis. “With few properties being built on spec, RCCI was one of the only spaces currently existing in Portland or Seattle that could accommodate a tenant of this size.”Ellis and partner John Fettig have the leasing assignment for Rivergate Corporate Center. Ted Nicholson, Walt Chenoweth, Frank Geraci and Dan de la Paz of CB Richard Ellis represented the tenant.Represented by Seattle-based Kennedy Associates Real Estate Counsel, MEPT inked a $4-million, 55-year ground lease with the Port of Portland for the RCC I property in December 2001. In October 2002, with Georgia-Pacific in its back pocket, MEPT signed a $5.4-million, 55-year lease for the RCC II land.