"We had been looking at the southeastern port markets, trying to choose between Savannah and Charleston where to establish a distribution project," Curt Grantham, senior managing director of Trammell Crow's Carolinas business unit, tells GlobeSt.com. "We chose Charleston because we liked the future growth prospects and barriers to entry. Also the Port of Charleston has a new terminal facility under construction and has the ability to double their distribution capacity over the next few years," he adds.

Construction on the first 772,000-sf building of Omni Commerce Park is scheduled to begin in September for delivery in the second quarter of 2009. TCC says it will seek LEED Certification for the project, and has already awarded CB Richard Ellis/Carmody Co. the leasing assignment. The additional acres for the project will be acquired when the market demands it, says Grantham, at which point buildings ranging in size from 100,000 sf to 468,000 sf will be erected.

The Summerville site was previously operated as a commercial nursery facility, supplying big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot. The owner had operated greenhouses on roughly half of the 310 acres for 11 years, but when Eastway Properties originally bought the property, they eventually envisioned it as distribution space, says Grantham.