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CARLSBAD, CA—There's no reason a company's industrial facilities can't be as cool and modern as their corporate headquarters, Kidder Mathews' Bob Willingham tells GlobeSt.com. With Burke Real Estate Group nearing completion of its state-of-the-art, 80,000-square-foot manufacturing and distribution center at 3200 Lionshead here—the first spec-built industrial building to be completed in North County in six years—we spoke exclusively with Burke's VP acquisitions and development Mike Coady and Willingham, who along with Ron King will be marketing the property for lease after its September completion, about the Carlsbad warehouse market and other industrial trends.

GlobeSt.com: How would you characterize the warehouse market in Carlsbad?

Willingham: Carlsbad's industrial market is roughly 14 million to 15 million square feet within the larger North County industrial market of about 53 million square feet. The overall market vacancy in North County is in the 7% range right now, and Carlsbad is a little higher than that—just under 10%—but a lot of that reflects higher-end R&D, lab and corporate-headquarters space that has been a little slow to recover. The type of building Burke is building is straightforward industrial, but because it's in Carlsbad it will be a really nice-looking building. The vacancy in that product type is around 5%, so we are building to the strength of the market.

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GlobeSt.com: Do you expect to see more development of this type in the submarket?

Coady: I hope not!

Willingham: First Industrial has broken ground on a project up in Oceanside that's about 240,000 square feet. We feel like being in Carlsbad is going to be a big advantage to us. We don't really see that as direct competition. Otherwise, some projects are in the planning stages in Carlsbad—one or two other projects that are about a year behind us.

GlobeSt.com: What other industrial trends are you noticing in this market?

Willingham: One thing we're seeing is a demand in the market for ESFR fire sprinklers, which is the standard for new construction today. It allows for users to make full use of the height of their building. When you go to racking, plastics are flammable, and if you don't have ESFR sprinklers you can't stack high, even with a 24-ft. clear height. Arguably, our building will be able to hold a third more stuff than a building built 10 years ago on a per-square-footage basis. That's a big deal. Also, Carlsbad is a very creative environment. Everybody's gotten to where they like a more modern building both on the finish and in the offices.

Coady: We'll have polished-concrete floors and a much more modern/creative look. There will be a kitchen/break area adjacent to the office and warehouse, and there will be glass in the front of the building to give it an indoor/outdoor lifestyle feel—a modern, creative-office feel. We're targeting higher-end industrial, action sports and creative-lifestyle manufacturers.

Willingham: We're pioneering on that because a lot of developers have been noticing that trend and trying to do that on the office side, but they haven't really been doing it on the industrial side. The reality is these companies need a place for warehousing, manufacturing and R&D, and there's no reason these sides can't be as cool and modern as their corporate-headquarters side.

GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about this building?

Coady: It will have dock-high distribution with six docks; it will be grade level with drive-around and be customizable; and there will be Internet access. For the most part, it's got all of the current amenities.

Willingham: Since we're designing the building on a spec basis, we're trying to pre-plan for as wide a range of users as possible. It's designed to be able to bring in additional power for heavy manufacturing users, and we have the ability to put in floor drains throughout the building—there a lot of food uses in the market including breweries, food manufacturers and juice companies that need that amenity, and it's really easy when you're building it to put in the extra drain lines. We thought ahead on it so if users needed it, it got there.