Industrial Project Follows Land Sale

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SAN BERNARDINO, CA-HG Capital LLC of Newport Beach and Menlo Park plans to develop 76,000 sf of industrial space in seven buildings ranging from 8,500 sf to 14,500 sf at the Waterman Place business park in a joint venture with Focus Real Estate LP. The developers will create the new for-sale building on a three parcels totaling nearly 4.4 acres that they bought recently at the Waterman development. HG Capital invested approximately $1.4 million of equity in the project and closed on the land with a construction loan from Alliance Bank. The developers say their project will be a response to the growth in demand for Inland Empire industrial space, which in turn is driven in large part by the increase in overseas imports. The new buildings will be aimed particularly at the owner-user assembly, manufacturing, and distribution centers in the region, where Focus has developed a number of other projects. The development is the latest sign of the broadening scope of industrial development in the Inland Empire, where huge big-box warehouses have dominated the scene for a dozen years. Developers are still building the big boxes, but many of today’s projects are also aimed at smaller owner-users like those being targeted by the HG Capital-Focus project. Herrick Johnson of Lee & Associates in Riverside is the listing agent for the development, which is one of a number in which HG Capital has invested of late. HG provides joint venture equity capital to real estate owners and developers for value-added plays. The company manages more than $100 million of equity capital and has invested in more than $1 billion worth of projects since 1994. Focus Real Estate, founded in April 2000 and headed by Richard Ortwein, specializes in working with corporate users, landowners and institutional investors.