RXR and logistics partner plan huge vertical warehouse in Maspeth

Scott Rechler’s firm teamed up with LA’s LBA Logistics earlier this year to buy site for $72M

Scott Rechler (blue), David Thomas (red) and renderings of the Grand Logistics Center in Maspeth (Credit: Getty Images)
Scott Rechler (blue), David Thomas (red) and renderings of the Grand Logistics Center in Maspeth (Credit: Getty Images)

Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty plans to build the city’s next multi-story warehouse at the Queens property his firm bought with Los Angeles-based LBA Logistics for more than $70 million earlier this year.

The partners have drawn up plans for a four-story warehouse they’re calling the Grand Logistics Center in the industrial section of Maspeth, representatives for the project told The Real Deal. The development could be as large as 770,000 square feet.

“This is an ideal location for a logistics facility to provide last-mile distribution services throughout Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island City, the East Side of Manhattan, Lower Manhattan and the rest of the boroughs,” said JLL’s Rob Kossar, vice chairman and head of the firm’s Northeast industrial region, who is leading the team that’s leasing the project.

He added that the location was fit for “retailers, e-commerce and New York-centric companies looking to satisfy the expedited shipping demands of customers in the largest consumer base in the United States.”

RXR and LBA Logistics paid $72 million in January to buy the properties at 54-15, 55-15 and 56-19 Grand Avenue.

Their plans call for a four-level warehouse with a ramp that allows trucks to load directly on the first, second and third levels.

While warehouses in Asia have been built with three or more stories, properties in New York and in particular New Jersey, tend to spread our horizontally, though the price of real estate has lately pushed some projects vertical.

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In the Bronx, Andrew Chung’s Innovo Group and Square Mile Capital Management plan to build an 840,000-square-foot warehouse that will stand two stories tall. And in Brooklyn, Dov Hertz and Goldman Sachs Group are planning a three-story, 370,000-square-foot vertical warehouse with ramps and elevators in Red Hook.

RXR and LBA Logistics’ site also includes an existing 71,000-square-foot building that’s available to lease now for occupancy in the second quarter of next year. The owners plan to demolish the other existing buildings on the property early next year, and will use the space for parking until they develop the new vertical warehouse.

The property sits in Maspeth’s Industrial Business Zone, one of 21 manufacturing zones the Bloomberg administration designated in 2006 to help protect manufacturing jobs.

Nearby, Los Angeles-based American Realty Advisors in May signed a contract to buy a 350,000-square-foot FedEx warehouse at 46-06 57th Avenue, property records show. The purchase price wasn’t indicated, but American Realty stepped in after Prologis backed out of a deal to buy the property for $265 million.

And Chung’s Innovo in August signed a contract to buy a 150,000-square-foot warehouse in Maspeth at 58-30 Grand Avenue for roughly $40 million.

Just a short drive up the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Amazon in October signed an 83,000-square-foot lease in Woodside for its first fulfillment center in Queens.