Most Active Industrial Developer
Winner
Catellus Development Corp.
San Francisco
Runners Up
Trammel Crow Co.
Dallas
Koll Development Co.
Newport Beach
Catellus Development Corp. bulldozed the competition last year.
Having already lured two of the nation’s four largest carpet manufacturers to open new headquarters offices at its La Mirada business complex, San Francisco-based Catellus broke ground there for a third, Beaulieu of America. Catellus is building a 260,000-square-foot building to house the company on 11.6 acres, at a cost of about $8 million.
The Beaulieu project was only one of 10 properties developed by Catellus in L.A. County last year, for a total of nearly 1.3 million square feet.
Also in La Mirada, Catellus began construction on 110,000 square feet for Delta Plastics. La Mirada is considered to be the next great distribution hub because of its central location and access to freeways, rail, ports, and airports.
Besides the two La Mirada projects, Catellus developed two buildings in Santa Fe and six at the 90-acre Catellus Commerce Center in the City of Industry, including buildings for Playhut Inc. (children’s toys), Maxus Industries (computer hardware), Formosa Textiles (sports apparel) and Unipac Shipping (imported goods), with the remaining two built on a speculative basis.
Catellus was spun off from Santa Fe Pacific Railroad in 1990 in order to develop the railroad’s real estate holdings. It owns one of the largest portfolios of developable land in the Western United States, with enough room to build more than 54 million square feet of new commercial space and 17,000 residential units, according to Charles McPhee, vice president of industrial development. About 20 percent to 25 percent of its holdings are in L.A. County, including 51 acres by Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.
The company completed a new headquarters for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on that property a couple of years ago, and last November it completed a new building for the Metropolitan Water District. Catellus is now looking at building low-rise offices on the property what Senior Vice President Doug Gardner calls “21st century buildings which would be particularly attractive to entertainment and high-tech companies.”
Scott Smith
