75 Acres in Oxnard Earmarked for Amazon

A 75-acre parcel of land at Sakioka Farms Business Park in Oxnard has sold to serve as the future site of a distribution facility for e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc.  While the price remains undisclosed, real estate brokerage Newmark, which was involved in the deal, said in a statement that the transaction signifies “the second-largest industrial land sale by sales price in Los Angeles County and Ventura County year-to-date.” According to Newmark and the city of Oxnard, the buyer plans to develop a 1.5 million-square-foot fulfillment center, to be occupied by Amazon. The project is expected to be fully operational by late 2021.

Newmark’s Executive Managing Director John DeGrinis and Senior Managing Directors Patrick DuRoss and Jeff Abraham, based in Calabasas, represented sellers Sakioka Farms and AMS Craig LLC. Cushman & Wakefield negotiated on behalf of buyer and developer Seefried Industrial Properties.

Located at the southeast corner of Rice Avenue and the 101 freeway, Sakioka Farms Business Park, which spans 430 acres, is one of the last sizable pieces of land in Oxnard that still has development potential.

“As e-commerce users continue to expand their delivery network with large building acquisitions, sizeable parcels such as this are extremely scarce in urban locations like the San Fernando Valley,” DeGrinis said in a Newmark statement. “This transaction validates the strength of the Ventura County industrial market and its labor force and will significantly bolster the local economy, creating approximately 1,500 jobs.” “The Sakioka Farms Business Park has been a 20-year endeavor between the Sakioka family and the city of Oxnard,”’ added the agribusiness owner Jeremy Sakioka in a statement. “We are excited to kick off the first phase of our park with a regional Amazon distribution center and a locally owned, state-of-the-art, cold storage facility.” Seefried, a developer associated with many of Amazon’s sorting and pick-up centers throughout North Los Angeles, will be essential in not only paving the way for the e-commerce leader to operate from Sakioka Farms Business Park, but also for cold storage company Arctic Cold to move into a Sakioka facility on a 25-acre parcel just to the west by providing the infrastructure needed for both companies.

“Landing that big user in Oxnard and unlocking that 430-acre Sakioka Farms Business Park was a big thing for Oxnard,” DeGrinis told the Business Journal.

Said Newmark’s DuRoss, “Having worked with the Sakioka family for several years, this transaction marks the first step towards their master planned, 430-acre project. There is an incredible economic opportunity in Ventura County and continued demand for modern industrial product in the Los Angeles North basin from e-commerce, biotech, food and beverage, manufacturing and entrainment users.”