RICHMOND—Two companies are taking a combined 280,000-square feet at White Oak Distribution Center here, bringing the 800,000-square foot, three-building facility to 90% occupancy. For the landlord, IndCor Properties, the timing of the deals is particularly exquisite as there will be no empty-space downtime, says JLL's Scott Keeton. "They will be moving right in, or in the case of one tenant, moved right in shortly after the landlord turned off the light for the departing tenants," he tells GlobeSt.com.

Last fall, Hewlett Packard gave back nearly 370,000 square feet in the facility.

Keeton, along with Charlie Polk and Jimmy Appich, represented IndCor on the lease transactions.

The leases also bring the 800,000-square foot, three-building facility to 90% occupancy.

The tenants and their backgrounds are diverse and depict two drivers of growth fueling Richmond's industrial market.

Premier Fixtures is leasing 161,445 square feet in Building 300. This company has grown organically and is now bringing multiple facilities under one roof with this lease, Keeton explains.

Syncreon USA, a Michigan-based provider of integrated logistics services to global industries, has just moving into Building 100, taking 120,000 square feet. A 3PL provider, it probably has secured a new client in the Richmond or Mid-Atlantic area, Keeton speculates. If it was the latter, clearly it decided that Richmond checked all of its boxes for a good logistics base.

Industrial and distribution activity is ramping up in Richmond for the aforementioned reasons—growth in the market and the city's central location to serve the Mid-Atlantic. There is also a third driver, Keeton says, namely the "spillover of demand" from primary industrial locations that JLL notes in a recent report. Major logistics corridors such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New Jersey now have few options for available Class A and quality B-spaces, the report says. Meanwhile, the end user finds that in-fill development, generally the only play to add new inventory, can be costly. "As a workaround, larger occupiers are exploring secondary markets with a reasonable drive time to major population centers, entitled land ready for development, a competitive labor force, a robust supporting infrastructure and economic incentive to credit tenants," the report says.

The White Oak Distribution Center is located two miles from I-295 and 3.4 miles from I-64 in Richmond's East End/Airport submarket.

The facilities offer 32' clear heights, 50-foot by 50-foot column spacing and expansion opportunities. There is 88,555 square feet remaining—one of only a few large, class A industrial spaces currently available in the Richmond area.