TEJON RANCH, CA-Tejon Ranch Co. and Rockefeller Group Development Corp. have started construction on the two companies' 606,000-sf previously announced joint venture warehouse at the 1,450-acre Tejon Industrial Complex. The joint venture partnership is also securing a Foreign Trade Zone at the site.

Robert Stine, president and CEO of Tejon Ranch Co., says that the joint venture aims to combine Tejon's strategically placed industrial land and the Rockefeller Group's track record in developing Foreign Trade Zones. The location of the complex at the junction of Interstate 5 and Highway 99 about 60 miles north of Los Angeles, combined with an FTZ designation, is expected to provide access to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as well as the Port of Oakland.

The JV's new facility is being marketed for lease, with the Colliers International team of Thomas Taylor and John DeGrinis as the agents for the new building as well as for leasing and land sales of other properties at Tejon Industrial Complex. Taylor says that the team sees conditions growing tighter in the established Southern California industrial corridors for big-box warehouse space serving port-related logistics concerns.

The idea behind the Foreign Trade Zone is to move goods out of the ports quickly and get them outside of the urban core of Los Angeles while still maintaining access to the L.A. Basin as well as the San Francisco Bay area, Tejon officials have told GlobeSt.com. FTZ designation exempts manufacturers and distributors from paying duty on imported items or raw materials until those goods enter the commerce of the US and enables users to move imported items directly from the ports to the FTZ, avoiding delays at congested ports.