Washington equipment firm expands in LaVergne
Nashville Business Journal - by Richard Lawson
Jet Equipment & Tools Inc. has become the latest in a growing list of companies to expand or move distribution operations to the Nashville area.
The Auburn, Wash.-based company has leased 101,000 square feet of a 562,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution building in Mid-South Logistec Center, a development in LaVergne near Interchange City.
Jet Equipment will expand when it moves from a 42,000-square-foot space in a building in LaVergne owned by Aurora, Co.-based real estate investment trust Security Capital Industrial Trust.
Owned by Swiss company Walter Meier Holding Co., Jet distributes woodworking and metalworking machines as well as hoists, pallet jacks and air tools. Its products are manufactured to its specifications in plants around the world.
"Some homeowners use our products, but they are directed more toward industry," says David Pinson, Jet's distribution manager in LaVergne.
The company's current facility serves as a "quick service center," shipping mainly its top moving items to the eastern U.S.
"When we expand, we will be more of a complete distribution center," Pinson says.
The center will serve the east coast and the states bordering the western edge of the Mississippi River.
The building Jet is moving into will be completed next month. Randy Wolcott, principal of Industrial Real Estate Services, represented the tenant and is leasing agent for Mid-South Logistec Center.
Ozburn-Hessey Development, a subsidiary of Nashville-based warehousing, distribution and transportation company Ozburn-Hessey Logistics, is developing the center, which could eventually grow to 2.5 million square feet.
Jet will join United Stationers Supply Co. in the same building. United Stationers, a wholesale office products distributor based in Des Plaines, Ill., signed a lease for 191,000 square feet in October. It is consolidating operations currently in the Nashville area and its move to the new building is a net expansion of 80,000 square feet.
Jet's lease is the latest in a string of deals spotlighting the Nashville area's emergence as a choice location for warehouse and distribution operations.
A lot of potential tenants are swirling in the market, says Patrick Brakefield, an industrial real estate specialist with the Nashville office of Los Angeles-based CB Commercial Real Estate Group.
It helps that new supply exists.
"Developers are building high-quality product that tenants want," Brakefield says.
Much of the new space allows products to be stacked higher, which enables a shipper to use space more efficiently.
For example, buildings in the Nashville area can stack products anywhere from 24 feet high to as much as 30 feet. The new buildings also provide better sprinkler systems than older ones and more space for trucks to maneuver.
The Interchange City area along the north side of I-24 has been the most popular.
Because of the available supply, LaVergne was able to attract Roseland, N.J.-based B&G Foods Inc., taking more than half of a 237,000-square-foot building in TechPark 24. The food products company came searching, selected a site and moved in a matter of several weeks.
TechPark 24 is a 600,000-square-foot development by Nashville's Five Star Investments and marketed by Eakin & Smith Real Estate.
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