Inland Empire NASCAR Track to Be 6.6M SF Logistics Hub

Hillwood Development and CBRE Investment Management have purchased for $559M the Auto Club Speedway, a 364-acre NASCAR race track in Fontana, with plans to develop a 6.6M SF logistics hub on the site.

The developer, a company headed by billionaire Ross Perot, Jr., bought the speedway at 9300 Cherry Avenue from Auto Club Speedway, a NASCAR entity, in a deal brokered by Corion Properties. Auto Club Speedway retains ownership of 90 acres for a potential half-mile short track and parking rights for 106 acres of the parking area.

The massive logistics center will be called the ACS Logistics Center, according to a release from Corion. The site is fully entitled for a 6.6M SF logistics hub.

“The ACS Logistics Center is a true unicorn site and perhaps the best site of its kind in the entire United States,” said Corion Properties CEO Fred Cordova.

The roughly $1M per acre paid by Hillwood makes the transaction one of highest-priced industrial deals in the Western Inland Empire, where large tracts for mega-warehouses are getting scare.

In 2022, Real Estate Development Associates paid $122M for a 130-acre site in Ontario where it is planning to build a 2.9M warehouse, a deal equivalent to about $938K per acre.

The economic slowdown has yet to dent the growth of the industrial market in SoCal’s Inland Empire, which recorded overall net absorption of 5.3M in Q4 despite 7.8M SF of deliveries.

While there were indications—particularly in the West submarket—that occupiers downsizing footprints are impacting on warehouses in the 100K SF to 300K SF range, the overall market is being driven by the arrival of pre-leased mega-warehouses, according to Newmark’s Q4 industrial market report.

Even with deliveries outpacing the growth of absorption in Inland Empire in the fourth quarter, the overall vacancy rate in the market—which early last year was as low as 0.4%—hovered at about 1.3%. Inland Empire is a region stretching from the LA city limits to the Arizona border, encompassing Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with an industrial inventory now totaling 677M SF.

Amazon, Skechers, Syncreon Technology and NFI all moved into new Inland Empire facilities larger than 500K SF in Q4. The pipeline for pre-leased mega-warehouses includes five 1M SF facilities set to arrive this year, facilities that are slated to be occupied by Target, Home Depot, Shopify, Amazon and Shein.

Pre-leasing of extra-large (500K+ SF) facilities in Inland Empire averages more than 60% encompassing about 26M SF, Newmark reported.

“Facilities in excess of 500K SF are expected to perform well since they cater to Fortune-ranked companies that are seeking the economies of scale a modern large-box facility offers, including, but not limited to, higher storage capacities and the ability to automate operations,” Newmark said.