Real Estate Services builds industrial park
BY TONY ILLIA

From left: Chip Johnson, president of Real Estate Services Group; Gerald Garapich of Garapich & Associates; Nelson Cumana, project manager for Affordable Concepts Inc.; and Don Linne, project superintendent for Affordable Concepts Inc.

Real Estate Services Group is building a speculative new 156,000-square-foot industrial park in southwest Las Vegas . The project calls for three buildings situated on 11 acres at the northwest corner of Industrial Road and El Dorado Way . Designed by Gerald Garapich & Associates, the single-level double-height concrete tilt-wall structures will have an 18-foot-tall clearance height as well as 4-foot loading docks. Affordable Concepts Inc. of Las Vegas is the general contractor.

The $3 million initial phase will consist of a 35,000-square-foot building with space divisible to 5,000 square feet. Lease rates will range from 55 cents per-square-foot triple-net for warehouse up to $1.10-per-square-foot triple-net for office. The first building is scheduled for occupancy by the first quarter of 2005, says Bob Potter, president of Affordable Concepts Inc.

The second phase calls for another 35,000-square-foot building followed by a final 86,000-square-foot phase that could be build-to-suit. The " Eldorado Industrial Park " will also have surface parking with a 3:1 ratio and water efficient landscaping. Consisting of light manufacturing, distribution, and flex spaces, the project is expected to achieve build-out by late 2005.

"The southwest is surrounded by box industrial warehouses with no mid-bay product," says Chip Johnson, president of Real Estate Services Group. "As a result, we've turned into an infill mid-bay project."

The Eldorado Industrial Park is part of a 45-acre master-planned mixed-use office/industrial development planned for the area over the next five years. Real Estate Services Group has owned the land for 15 years.

"You have to be a very astute builder to pay retail prices today and make these types of projects pencil," Johnson says.

The industrial market recorded a strong 9.2 percent vacancy rate during the third quarter, a 0.2 percent improvement over the same quarter last year, reports Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas-based economic research firm. With 77.9 million square feet of inventory in 2,433 buildings, new additions to the market totaled 933,000 square feet in the third quarter, while net absorption was 432,000 square feet.