The pet food and supplies retailer will use the facility as its Mid-Atlantic distribution center, according to Bob Northcutt, vice president of distribution and transportation for the company. PETCO's new operation joins a nearby US Postal Service distribution center as the latest entries into Central New Jersey's 8A submarket, which remains one of the fastest--and few--growing industrial markets in the country.

"We are very happy to announce the PETCO lease signing," Alexander B. Taylor, chief operating officer for the Cranbury, NJ-based Matrix Development Group, tells Globest.com. "I feel that this significant lease bodes extremely well for the overall health of the industrial market as a whole, and the strength of the 8A market in particular."

Indeed, the signing represents a one-two punch of sorts for Matrix, which just signed industrial products supplier W.W. Grainger to a 436,000-sf build-to-suit deal just up the road in Washington Twp. (see earlier story). Ironically, Grainger is vacating a 250,000-sf space in another Matrix property in the Exit 8A submarket for the new and substantially larger Exit 7A location slightly to the south.

In the PETCO transaction, the tenant was represented by Bill Heim and Michael Chavez of Lee & Associates, Ontario, CA, along with Eric B. Johnston of NAI/Eric Bram & Co. of East Brunswick, NJ. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"We are pleased to be occupying space in the 'infamous' Exit 8A industrial market," says Northcutt, referring to the region's growing reputation for securing big box industrial tenants.

Based in San Diego, CA, PETCO operates close to 600 stores in 42 states and the District of Columbia. The company, which generated net sales of $1.3 billion for its most recent fiscal year, has also become a leading destination for the on-line sale of pet food and supplies.