Preview: Room @ the Ranch

As land for giant warehouses gets harder to find in Southern California, Tejon Ranch Co. sees an opportunity. The company owns the largest privately-held land mass in California, but with only a portion of it in L.A. County and most in Kern County, it hasn’t received much attention from big industrial tenants or real estate developers. Now that is changing. It has land entitlements, funding and new partnerships with developers to expand its Tejon Ranch Commerce Center logistics park, and to build more than 30,000 homes and commercial space near the center to supply it with labor. Together with partner Majestic Realty Co., the country’s largest private owner of industrial real estate, Tejon Ranch will build its first new warehouse in eight years, a nearly 500,000-square-foot facility for distribution or e-commerce that it plans to break ground on in November. “We see this as the time to jump in,” said Hugh McMahon, executive vice president of commercial and industrial real estate for Tejon Ranch. “Up till now, tenants have focused on pursuing the Inland Empire. Now we see what’s happened in the North L.A. market. We’re the next logical location.” Read the full story in the Oct. 31 issue of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.