The building was 29% pre-leased, with International FoodProducts Corp. taking 120,000 sf for warehouse space. The land wasbought by Balke Brown for about $6 million, and it cost about $14million to build the facility, says Scott Zola, the project managerwith Clayco. "The owner saw the need for distribution space indowntown. There are older centers here, but the new centers builtare constructed in the western collar counties," Zola tellsGlobeSt.com.

He says the 20-acre site was a former rail yard, and sixstructures had to be torn down before construction began. TheClayco team had to build the North Broadway facility about 30 feetfrom its property line, adjacent to the Terminal RailroadAssociation's main line. "There were several challenges in theconstruction. We found a lot of rail spurs, remnants from oldfoundations and a couple of silo foundations," Zola says. Thecompany also had to relocate several public utilities to the site,and remediate some polluted property.

Zola says he doesn't know the lease rate for the building. Ratesfor distribution centes range from $4.25 to $5.81 per sf, accordingto a third quarter market report by Grubb & Ellis.