A Scottsdale developer’s purchase of 44 acres in East Mesa for $19.14 million has laid the groundwork for the first phase of a light industrial warehouse-office complex that could eventually total almost 1 million square feet.
Mesa’s economic development chief said the location of the project and the company behind it bodes well for continued strong demand in Mesa’s Pecos Advanced Manufacturing Zone.
Martens Development Co. bought the parcel at the northeast corner of Ellsworth and Germann roads from Silver Creek Development, also in Scottsdale, with an option to buy another 17 acres, according to Valley real estate tracker vizzda.com.
The newly acquired land for The Brickyards on Ellsworth is in the overflight area of the southern end of the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.
It also is smack in the middle of the Pecos Industrial Corridor, a swath of former agricultural land that the city has high hopes for a job-creating powerhouse.
At least two other mega-warehouse complexes started making their way through city approvals in 11 months, gobbling up land in East Mesa that was once occupied by farms.
Last November, City Council approved the final plat for roads and lots for the 112-acre Sossaman 202 Industrial Park on the southwest corner of Sossaman and Warner roads.
Costa Mesa, Calif.-based real estate investment company Contour is planning 1.5 million square feet of industrial space spread over eight buildings.
Two months later, the Mesa Planning and Zoning Board approved the rezone and plans for the first two phases of a development called “The Block,” which call for 14 buildings totaling 2 million square feet of industrial space at Elliot and Sossaman roads.
The Brickyards parcel was first pitched last year as the Willis Industrial Complex.
It was re-christened The Brickyards this year as it sailed through a site plan review and planned area development rezone in the spring.
Martens Development completed the land purchase shortly after Mesa City Council approved a final plat that splits a larger 61-acre parcel into two smaller lots.
The first phase of The Brickyards is slated to have seven freestanding Class A industrial buildings totaling 603,000 square feet, with buildings ranging in size from 36,000 square feet to 260,000 square feet.
A brochure touts “heavy power, dock-high and grade-level loading, electric vehicle charging stations, innovative building design” and proximity to the Loop 202 and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.
Documents submitted to the city state that manufacturing and technology are expected to be primary uses, with other employment uses as secondary.
Mesa’s Economic Development Director Bill Jabjiniak said the deal was good news for Mesa’s Pecos Road manufacturing corridor because the location is strategic for encouraging development of vacant land to the east.
He said that’s because where The Brickyards is located, Pecos road dead ends as it hits Ellsworth from the west before resuming again about a half-mile to the north on Ellsworth.
City planners envision a new street opposite Pecos at its southern intersection with Ellsworth called East Willis Road, which would be the northern edge of The Brickyards.
Having the business park at this conjunction will hasten the development of East Willis Road, Jabjiniak believes, and create greater access to the vacant former dairy land to the east.
“You gotta have access” for development, Jabjiniak said.
Martens Development started as a Canadian company that eventually relocated to the United States.
Jabjiniak said the company “has a history of working with us as a quality developer and doing good things for southeast Mesa.”
Martens Development is behind several prominent industrial projects in Mesa, including the various phases of The Landing, a business park along Ray Road north of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport that’s home to Canadian car maker Electra Meccanica and medical device maker Dexcom, among others.
Jabjiniak credited The Landing’s 2019 launch with helping to spark Mesa’s recent run of industrial development
This project was “one of the first out of the gate,” Jabjiniak said, and Phase 1 of The Landing turned heads when it was 100% leased before construction was finished.
The Landing and projects that followed helped launch the PMGA area to fourth in the nation for industrial space in the pipeline, according to a report this summer from real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield, which also arranged the Brickyards sale.
Martens is also behind the Elliot 202 project, a 1-million-square-foot building at Elliot and the Loop 202 that was sold last year to the California Teachers Retirement System and is leased by Amazon for a regional distribution center.
While discussing The Brickyards on Ellsworth and the Pecos Advanced Manufacturing Zone surrounding it, Jabjiniak sounded more buoyant than he did five months ago during an update to city council, when he cautioned that some companies were slowing business decisions.
But last week he said there is “a tremendous amount of interest” in industrial space along the Pecos corridor, and while Mesa has a large pipeline of new buildings, Jabjiniak said demand is staying in balance with supply.
He added that the region has an “extremely low” 4.4% industrial vacancy rate.
“We’re in a great position to recruit for a variety of businesses in that industrial space,” he said.
