Ross Perot Jr. pays $544M for Fontana development site

Billionaire developer Ross Perot Jr. has bought land for a massive industrial redevelopment project in the Inland Empire. 

Perot’s firm Hillwood Development Company paid $559 million to buy the majority of a 633-acre racetrack in Fontana, with plans to redevelop it into a 6.6 million-square-foot logistics campus, according to Commercial Observer, which cited data from Vizzda. 

Hillwood bought the site from NASCAR, which kept 90 acres at the site to potentially build a half-mile track. 

The redevelopment, located at 9300 Cherry Avenue, will be called the Speedway Commerce Center, according to CBRE. 

The deal came out to about $1 million per acre, slightly more than other developers have paid in recent months to buy up land for redevelopment. 

Last year, Real Estate Development Associates paid $122 million for 130 acres — about $938,000 per acre — in Ontario, where it will build a 2.9 million-square-foot warehouse. 

Demand for logistics and warehouse space soared at the start of the pandemic, as shoppers went online to buy goods.

The Inland Empire, which encompasses Riverside and San Bernardino counties, has become a Southern California and national hub for both industrial development and sales, given proximity to Los Angeles ports and land availability. Large warehouses, such as Amazon.com’s 4-million-square-foot facility in Ontario, rose from the desert. In 2021, vacancy started to approach zero, as firms gobbled up any available space. 

Vacancy has since risen to 1.1 percent, as of the end of 2022, according to CBRE, as more space has come to market. About 37 million square feet is under construction across the region.