The Northeast Contra Costa County industrial submarket has been a hot spot in the East Bay region, with Antioch reporting a vacancy rate of only 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to CBRE data. Just 61K square feet of industrial space is under construction in the overall submarket.

“We are excited to develop the newest and largest Class A distribution facility in the Bay Area and remain confident in the region’s long-term potential as we seek additional opportunities,” Mark Hilton Carpenter, Jr., Rockefeller Group’s West Region director, said in a statement.

Rockefeller’s Antioch Logistics Center will include 36-foot clear heights, advanced sprinkler systems, 61 truck doors, 119 truck trailer spaces and up to 10,000 square feet of office space. The project is expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 2026.

Container volume at the Port of Oakland grew 10% in 2024 to a total of 2.3M TEUs. Imports at the port have grown for 14 consecutive months, according to Collier’s latest report on U.S. seaports.

“Although Oakland is the primary beneficiary, the Port also drives significant demand for industrial markets throughout the East Bay and Central Valley,” the analysis said.

The Port of Oakland’s main trading partners include China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India. Third-party logistics (3PL) providers based in Asia have been scooping up large warehouse leases on the West Coast as they brace for higher tariffs on goods shipped to the U.S.

Retailers and wholesalers upped their foreign imports into the U.S. last year in anticipation of potential tariffs by the Trump administration, driving a surge in demand for U.S. coastal industrial facilities from Asian-based 3PLs.

Overall, Asian-based logistics providers inked 78 bulk warehouse leases each encompassing 100K square feet or more in the U.S. in 2024, with most of these deals involving facilities within 100 miles of a U.S. seaport, according to CBRE. Sixteen of these bulk leases were for lower-rent sublease space that became available in oversupplied markets.

Near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Inland Empire was by far the preferred location for Asian 3PLs, drawing nearly three times as many new bulk deals in 2024 as their second choice, northern and central New Jersey.

Asian 3PL providers accounted for 28 bulk leases in the Inland Empire market in 2024, more than 42% of the total of 66 bulk leases inked last year in the two-county region, which borders Los Angeles and spans Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Rockefeller Group recently completed the Patterson Commerce Center, a 260K square foot logistics center built on a 14-acre site in Perris in the heart of Inland Empire.