(To read more on the industrial market, click here.)

RIVERSIDE, CA-Omni West, an Irvine-based development andinvestment firm, plans to develop a four-building industrialcomplex totaling 47,000 sf on a project site at Garner Road near athree-way freeway interchange. The company expects to beginconstruction in November, with completion slated for April.The$7.2-million project will be called Omni West Business Center andwill feature four buildings consisting of eight units ranging insize from 4,000 sf to 6,000 sf. Each building will be of two-story,concrete tilt-up construction with office and warehouse space, aswell as a mezzanine.Omni West is aiming the project at "theincreased demand for owner-user small-box units," according to KipDubbs, president and CEO of the company.The company is offering thebuildings for lease or sale, although it expects more sales thanleasing because of the continued from owner-users for smallindustrial buildings.The listing agent for the project is Art Dayof the Ontario office of CB Richard Ellis. Day says that directvacancy rates remain low in the Inland Empire, dropping below 3% inthe fourth quarter of 2005, despite new industrial spaceconstruction totaling more than 26 million sf.The Omni Westconstruction site is a 2.5-acre parcel of vacant land that thecompany bought in October. "It's one of the few small-box projectsscheduled to be built in Riverside in 2006," Day says.The Riversideproject is the second Inland Empire development announced by OmniWest in recent weeks. The other is a two-story 8,454-sf medicaloffice project called Paseo del Sol in Downtown Chino where theIrvine-based firm recently broke ground.