Hunter Park Draws 5 Developers : Office/Industrial Site in Riverside Offers Rich Mix

Riverside’s 1,200-acre Hunter Park commercial district northeast of downtown has emerged in the last few years as the city’s prime office/industrial site.

This is due to activity by such major real estate developers as the Trammell Crow Co., the Magnon Cos., Westway Group, Nadig/Rouhe and Teraden Corp., according to Mark Haworth of the Riverside office of Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services, the leasing agent for many of the developers.

More than 1 million square feet of office and industrial space already has been completed in the tract at the convergence of the Riverside (91) Freeway, Interstate 215 and the Pomona (60) Freeway, and an additional 1.7 million square feet is either under development or planned in 10 separate projects by the five developers, Haworth said.

Hunter Park is named for Joe Hunter of Hunter Engineering Co., the original landowner. A 34-acre park in the development also bears his name.

Nearly 1.3 million square feet of the 1.7 million square feet under development or planned belongs to the Magnon Cos., the Riverside-based firm that is building the $8-million Spruce Avenue Financial Center on a five-acre site at Spruce Street and Chicago Avenue.

Consisting of a five-story, 60,000-square-foot office building and two restaurants, the project is scheduled for completion late this year.

Magnon has also broken ground on the 9.25-acre Iowa Business Park on Iowa Avenue between Spruce Street and Marlborough Avenue. Also scheduled for a year-end completion, the project will have 138,000 square feet of office, industrial and retail space in five buildings.

The planned Park Northgate will be Magnon’s largest Hunter Park project, with more than 1 million square feet projected on two parcels totaling 75 acres on Northgate Street between Marlborough and Citrus avenues.

At Magnon’s Park Atlanta, on Atlanta Avenue between Marlborough Avenue and Spruce Street, two new office/research and development buildings of 40,000 and 60,000 square feet are planned, according to the firm’s vice president, Doug Magnon.

Park Atlanta has become a financial center, with more than 200,000 square feet leased since January, 1986, to such tenants as New York Life Insurance Co., Directors Mortgage Loan Corp., Continental/Lawyers Title Co., Safeco Title Insurance Co., North American Mortgage Co. and State Farm Insurance Cos. “Since Hunter Park has evolved from a purely industrial area into a full-scale mixed-use development, it has become virtually the only high-quality environment in Riverside where large office space users like the financial companies can obtain the space they need at reasonable lease rates,� Magnon said.

“Directors Mortgage, for example, looked all over the Inland Empire before moving their corporate headquarters to Park Atlanta. They were able to double their square footage while increasing their rent by only 20%.�

Trammell Crow Co., the Dallas-based developer active in Los Angeles and San Diego and elsewhere in California, has also focused on Hunter Park because of its availability of space and strategic location in the Inland Empire, according to Jeff Trenton, a Coldwell Banker leasing agent.

Trammell Crow has just completed two projects, Iowa Distribution Center and Chicago Avenue Business Center, Trenton said.

The distribution center at Iowa and Marlborough avenues has two warehouse buildings totaling 186,000 square feet. Integrated Ceilings, a designer and manufacturer of specialty ceilings, has just leased the larger of the two buildings--114,700 square feet--for its national headquarters and main production facility.

The Chicago Avenue Business Center, 48,000 square feet at Chicago and Marlborough avenues, is 30% leased, Trenton said.

Irvine-based Westway Group is building the 8.8-acre Iowa Corporate Center on Iowa Avenue between Palmyrita and Columbia avenues. Its first phase, scheduled for completion in October, includes a 35,000-square-foot building that will be occupied by the Internal Revenue Service and two multitenant buildings totaling 38,000 square feet.

An early-1988 construction start is scheduled for Westway’s newest project, the 6.5-acre Hunter Park Office Plaza across Iowa Avenue from Magnon’s Iowa Business Park. It will have three two-story office buildings with a total of 115,000 square feet, to be built in three phases.

“We’re attracting a large number of companies from Orange and Los Angeles counties that can no longer afford to do business there because of high land prices and lease rates,� according to Robert McKernan, president of Westway Group.

Other current developments in Hunter Park include the 30,000-square-foot, three-story Nadig/Rouhe office building at 2155 Chicago Ave., and Teradon Corp.’s project of three research and development/office buildings planned for the northwest corner of Iowa and Columbia avenues.

Hunter Park is expected to preserve its lease-rate advantage over other areas of the Inland Empire, according to Vindar Batoosingh, another Riverside-based Coldwell Banker leasing specialist.

“It’s possible that lease rates will rise from their current high of $1.35 per square foot, but the area will still be more affordable than other areas, where rates are as high as $1.85 per square foot,� he said.

Rapid absorption of buildings in Hunter Park have contributed to Riverside posting an 8% industrial vacancy rate--among the lowest in the Inland Empire--and a relatively low office vacancy rate of 13%, according to Coldwell Banker’s Jeff Trenton.