According to Oakmont's Southern California regional partner, Tim Howard, the infill property is entitled for homes, but it was previously zoned industrial and is located in an area of Rialto called the Rialto Industrial Redevelopment Project. Working in conjunction with the City of Rialto's Economic Development Corp., Oakmont plans to re-entitle the property and develop an industrial business park designed to specs including full concrete truck courts, ESFR fire sprinkler systems and clear heights between 30 and 32 feet. The multi-building park will be designed specifically to meet LEED-certified core and shell standards.

Howard says that the location and size of the project make it "a unique development opportunity" in light of the "lack of new, state-of-the-art product within the size ranges we are planning to build" in other infill markets such as the San Gabriel Valley, Ontario, Chino and Mira Loma. He notes that Oakmont is a member of the US Green Building Council and that the firm's new development "will fit within our company's initiative for all new developments nationwide to be LEED-certified."

According to Randall Lewis, executive vice president of Lewis Operating Corp., the sale of the land "further illustrates the fact that Rialto is an emerging market." The new site expands an Oakmont portfolio that includes the 190-acre former El Rivino Golf Course, a development project slated for nearly four million sf of industrial product.

Oakmont acquired the golf course property last year with Prudential Real Estate Investors and Hunt Realty Corp. as capital partners. The Atlanta-based firm, which will be offering buildings for sale as well as for lease, will offer some bulk warehouse space as well as business park buildings, with size ranges to be determined by market demand when Oakmont completes the entitlement process.

The Rialto acquisition was one of a number of Southern California deals in recent weeks for Oakmont, which recently sold an 83,527-sf building at 1800 S. Anderson St. in the Los Angeles County industrial submarket of Compton, a location with quick freeway access to local ports. The buyer was Aloha Freight Forwarders, the occupant of the building.

Oakmont initially purchased the 4.6-acre site in October 2004. The firm completed an extensive rehabilitation and expansion of the second-generation 51,000-sf tilt-up building, which was originally built by the Pogen Family Bakery as a cookie manufacturingplant.

Oakmont added 32,527 sf to the building's footprint while overhauling the existing structure and adding a new four-ply built-up roof, 17 dock-high positions and doors, a full concrete truck court, metal halide warehouse lighting, scrim foil radiant barriers and seismic upgrading. Oakmont leased the facility to Aloha Freight in November 2005.