Whirlpool Signs 10 Year Lease for 1.7 Million SF Distribution Center in CA Inland Empire

Trading Markets - November 19, 2007

Whirlpool Corp. has signed a 10-year lease to occupy the Perris Distribution Center, a 1.7-million-square-foot warehouse-distribution facility at the northeast corner of Perris Boulevard and Morgan Street, said Sam Foster, senior vice president with Jones Lang LaSalle, a Los Angeles real estate firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Foster negotiated Whirlpool's lease with the building's developer, IDS Real Estate Group in Los Angeles. The building was the largest speculative warehouse-distribution project ever built in the United States, said Murad Siam, IDS Real Estate's co-chief executive officer.

All of the employees are being moved from two warehouse-distribution facilities in Ontario and one in Mira Loma. Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool leased more than 1.5 million square feet of logistics space in those three cities, Foster said.

Whirlpool, which purchased Maytag Corp. for $1.79 billion on March 2006, is building 10 large warehouse-distribution facilities, including the Perris operation, in North America. The Perris facility will serve the southwest United States, Foster said.

Whirlpool officials originally wanted to build their own distribution facility on 80 acres that was served by rail, but changed their plans when such a site became too difficult to find. "It's almost impossible to find a site like that anywhere in the Los Angeles area," Foster said. "We looked in Barstow, but by then Whirlpool decided they would be better off locating in the basin." Sphere: Related Content