ANAHEIM, CA-Panasonic Corporation of North America has signed a five-year lease for the 300,000-square-foot Anaheim Concourse Distribution Center at 3454 E. Miraloma Ave. The consumer electronics company has already moved into the space, where it has relocated distribution operations from 175,000 square feet in Santa Fe Springs, according to Newmark Knight Frank brokers who represented Panasonic.

"This will be Panasonic’s primary West Coast distribution center,” said Newmark Knight Frank principal Timothy Greiner, who represented Panasonic along with Michael Ippolito, chairman of Newmark Knight Frank Global Corporate Services, working with SVP Steve Bellitti of Colliers International. The company also has distribution centers in the Chicago area and Kent, WA.

Commenting on the deal in an announcement from Newmark Knight, which executed the deal via its Global Corporate Services Group, Greiner said: “This is a more modern facility that we were able to source within Panasonic’s preferred geography without the company having to move to outlying submarkets. We found that a thorough study of not only real estate costs, but also logistics and transportation requirements, made the Anaheim location, which is closer to the Port of Los Angeles than many of the submarkets, a better choice in both environmental sensitivity and economical operation for Panasonic’s specific business needs."

Greiner added that, given the scope of its operations, Panasonic is also pursuing Foreign Trade Zone status for the new property, which would provide additional savings. The class A distribution facility is located within the Anaheim Canyon Business Center and was formerly occupied by PacSun. Owner Panattoni Development Co. was represented by in-house counsel Jacob LeBlanc.

Terms of the lease were undisclosed, but industry sources tell GlobeSt.com it was valued at about $10 million. The Anaheim industrial submarket totals about 45 million square feet, part of a North Orange County industrial market totaling roughly 110 million square feet, where average asking rates at the end of 2010 were about 50 cents per square foot per month, NNN, according to market reports.