Layoffs, Relocation Open Valencia Building for Lease

Nearly 200,000 square feet of industrial space has just become available for lease in Valencia, a welcome reprieve in the tight market. NAI Capital Inc.’s Executive Managing Director Chris Jackson and Executive Vice President Todd Lorber in the Encino office are handling the leasing of 28545 Livingston Ave. W., a 173,000-square-foot industrial building off Witherspoon Parkway and in the Vista Business Park. The building is currently leased by Balboa Water Group, which makes components for spas and whirlpool baths, and has U.S. headquarters in Tustin. The company told the state’s Employment Development Department in September in a notice that it plans to close its operations on or around Jan. 6 and relocate to Tijuana, Mexico. According to the notice, 245 people will be laid off, although they have been offered jobs at the new site. The company did not return calls for comments. Valencia is the company’s global plastics manufacturing base for pumps, jets and white goods for whirlpool baths and hot tubs. The building, built in 1999, is fully air-conditioned, has eight dock-high and four ground-level truck loading doors, 28-foot clear height ceilings and 4,000 amps of power. There is also space to add 16 truck-high doors. Jackson said the asking rent will be 65 cents a square foot. That’s on par with the area’s average asking rent of 65 cents a square foot, according to third-quarter data from Colliers International, and far lower than the overall San Fernando Valley’s average asking rent of 74 cents a square foot. According to Colliers, Santa Clarita’s vacancy for industrial space was only 1.4 percent. Potential tenants include manufacturers and distributors, Jackson said. “This will be a great addition to the market, as it is currently the only state-of-the art building over 100,000 square feet that can be occupied by December 2016,” Jackson said. Vacancy will go up a bit by the end of March when space in other buildings comes on the market for lease, he added.