Greenlaw rides Amazon to $128M sale in Simi Valley

Price of 290K sf distribution facility on 44 acres up four-fold after renovation, lease deal

Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, in front of 400 National Way, Simi Valley, CA (Getty Images, LoopNet, iStock)
Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, in front of 400 National Way, Simi Valley, CA (Getty Images, LoopNet, iStock)

A 290,000-square-foot, 44-acre Amazon distribution center in Simi Valley has traded hands for $128 million, eight times what it sold for a year ago.

Newport Beach-based Greenlaw Partners sold the property to an unnamed family office, according to Newmark, which represented the developer and announced the deal this week.

Greenlaw last year paid Los Angeles-based Rising Realty Partners $16 million for the property, which once was occupied by Bank of America. Greenlaw spent another $17 million on renovations before signing Amazon to a 15-year lease.

The facility is located at 400 National Way, just across the Ventura County line, about 50 miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. The e-commerce giant moved in recently as part of a broader push for its distribution operations in Southern California

In a statement, Newmark said the property “represents an extraordinary example” of a partnership between a project developer and tenant “in the burgeoning North Los Angeles submarket.”

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The Commercial Observer reported that the buyer was an entity tied to Cancilla Properties, a firm based in Costa Mesa, with Westbrook Partners in New York part of the deal on the seller side.

Since the onset of the pandemic Amazon has expanded rapidly in much of the country, including in Southern California, where it is busy extending a push that began a few years ago and is now reaching well beyond the core of Los Angeles.

This week, the West Covina City Council approved plans to redevelop a church property into one Amazon distribution center. In August Amazon also signed a lease for a 200,000 square-foot warehouse in Moorpark, which followed another lease signing for a Santa Clarita facility.

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