"They wanted to be adjacent to the intermodal center for future growth and for additional customers," says Daniel Leahy, EVP of NAI Hiffman, who along with VP Adam Roth represented CenterPoint in the deal. "There's a very large transportation savings for companies located adjacent to the intermodal center as opposed to outside of it, and they wanted to take advantage of that." Alliance was represented by Larry Hanley of Midwest Commercial in the lease.

Alliance joins Cyprus Medical, which occupies 383,500 square feet, at the new facility, where another 383,500 square feet remains available for lease. Alliance's lease rate for its space, which offers 32-foot clear ceilings, 108 trailer spaces, 53 dock doors, two drive-ins and some office, was $3.25 per square foot net with 2.5% annual escalation. CenterPoint will begin construction on its second import distribution center of the same size this summer, with expected completion in early 2010.

CenterPoint began work in 2002 on its 2,500-acre park, which currently offers eight buildings with a total of 8.5 million square feet. The intermodal center is 95% occupied with only the remaining unit in Alliance's building available at present. It has also acquired an additional 3,600 acres to the north in Joliet where the company expects to begin construction by next year on another intermodal development, which is planned to be valued at about $2 billion when completed.

"The demand for people coming into this park is from people utilizing the BNSF Logistics Park-Chicago, that takes all the international traffic that comes into the Midwest into Chicago right there," Leahy tells GlobeSt.com. "If you're not using the intermodal center, locating adjacent to there is probably not your best option. However, we have had some companies locate there that are not using the intermodal, just based on the residual value of the building, because the intermodal does add value to the buildings here."

The Elwood intermodal center is located in the Interstate 80 corridor, where occupancy rates are around 82%, according to Cushman & Wakefield's recent industrial market report. Asking lease rates in the submarket range from $3 to $7 per square foot net, according to the research. Leahy says the intermodal center is significantly outperforming the rest of the market.

"We're one of the only areas down there that has momentum in terms of doing deals," he says. "There is a tremendous amount of vacancy in the Interstate 80 market, mostly in bigger box properties where there are currently five 750,000-square-foot-or-larger spec buildings that are vacant in the corridor. We're the only park really seeing deal flow, but that's because we're adding value with the transportation savings."