Simi Valley Tilt-Ups Rise

Walls are tilting up on all five industrial buildings totaling 342,557 square feet at Tapo Canyon Commerce Center in Simi Valley.

“We started with building 5, our biggest building and working clockwise,” said Patrick DuRoss, who along with John DeGrinis and Jeff Abraham form the Newmark brokerage team who will serve as leasing agents after the industrial buildings are built by fall of this year.

Construction has officially begun on these 18 acres, where buildings range from 25,786 square feet to 135,579 square feet. 

The buildings feature 28- to 36-foot minimum clear height, dock high loading, window lined office space and prominent street frontage on Tapo Canyon Road and Los Angeles Avenue.

The building have amenities specific for industrial users.

“We have gas, which a lot of newer buildings don’t have,” DuRoss said. “Each building has above average power.”

The buildings range from 800 to 2000 amps.

“That’s the advantage of having new buildings,” DuRoss said of the pending property’s features, which can accommodate different types of tenants.

“In this market, we have the most diverse base in the industrial realm,” DuRoss said. “An entertainment company may not need natural gas, but a manufacturer may. You want to cater to (them) because you don’t know who’s going to come to the project.”

Stream Realty, in a joint venture with Quad Real Property Group, is developing Tapo Canyon Commerce Center. The entities purchased the property in June 2020 for $24.5 million. 

“It is our first development in the Valley,” said Scott Sowanick, head of West Coast acquisitions and development team at Stream Realty. “We’ve got several projects throughout the greater Los Angeles.”

“We sold them the site and came together on the business plan on what to build there,” DuRoss explained.

Formerly home to offices for Countrywide, which was later purchased by Bank of America, the site was originally devoted to 270,000 square feet of office space.

“The previous ownership looked to sell it,” DuRoss said. “We brought Stream in and they purchased it with the plan to build buildings that were more useful to the community. It was already zoned for industrial.”

The property was in escrow before the pandemic hit in March 2020.

“It closed right in the throes of Covid,” DuRoss said. “They continued on through the pandemic. We’re on schedule for October of this year.”

Designed by HPA Architecture, Tapo Canyon Commerce Center broke ground last October.

Kimley-Horn serves as the civil engineering firm and KRPS is the general contractor on the project. The project’s former address was 1800 Tapo Canyon Road, but it now has five different addresses – three on Los Angeles Avenue and two on Tapo Canyon Road. 

Diverse tenant base

The largest building covers 135,579 square feet, followed by 76,445, 67,768, 36,979 and the smallest at 25,786 square feet. 

“Some developers would build a single building,” DuRoss said. “We designed each building with a variety of size range. We’re experiencing a lot of demand in each of those size ranges.”

Tenants will have leasing options from 19,239 square feet to the entire campus.

Team DeGrinis is already talking to parties regarding the larger buildings.

“We’re currently negotiating on a couple of leases,”’ DuRoss said. “There’s a lot of interest from a large amount of groups, from manufacturing to food and beverage to entertainment.

“On the smaller buildings, we’ll wait till we get three or four months out,” DuRoss said. “Also, there are companies outside of the Valley looking for modern buildings. We’re seeing a wide variety of interest coming up.”

DuRoss said that he and his colleagues have also had a positive experience with Stream, and the city government.

“Simi Valley has been great, they’re very business friendly. You can call over to the city and you’ll find someone responsive to you,” DuRoss said.

“Simi Valley has been a phenomenal place to work with,” added Sowanick at Stream. “It’s a really exciting project that we feel fortunate to be a part of.”

Sowanick sees much potential regarding the types of companies that will ultimately move into the five facilities.

“One of the many reasons why we love Simi – it’s a great microcosm of the North L.A. market and it’s a very diverse tenant base,” Sowanick said. “You design buildings flexible enough to accommodate a diverse range of tenants.”

Tapo Canyon Commerce Center represents something new for the region, DuRoss said.

“We haven’t had a lot of large industrial buildings in the past 30 years,” he said. “We’ve had some opportunity to build in Simi Valley, but this is the only project of scale delivering in 2022. This is it in the North L.A. market – the only thing over 100,000 square feet delivering this year.”