Target is set for a 1.9 million-square-foot distribution warehouse in Riverside, adding to the boom of logistic centers across the Inland Empire.
The warehouse for the Minneapolis-based big box retailer will rise on a sliver of land south of March Air Reserve Base and east of the 215 Freeway, the Press-Enterprise reported.
The project is on a parcel south of the March Field Air Museum. The land is overseen by the March Joint Powers Authority, a public agency in charge of redeveloping land from March Air Force Base after it was downsized in the early 1990s.
The industrial warehouse is being developed by the Dallas-based Hillwood, founded by the son of ’90s presidential candidate Ross Perot. The company is spending $2.5 million to help build an underground drainage channel to protect the base.
Target is the eighth largest retailer in the U.S., with a market cap of $101.5 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
It has 48 supply chain facilities sending goods to 1,926 stores across the nation, according to its website. The publicly traded company had $93.6 billion in total revenue in 2020.
Though the pandemic has been a severe challenge for many retailers, Target has been in expansion mode. The Minneapolis-based chain is planning to open up to 40 stores a year, officials said at the company’s third-quarter earnings call last year.
The March Joint Powers Commission, a panel of elected officials that oversees the Riverside-based authority, approved the project in May 2021.
The warehouse was “thoroughly vetted” by air base regulators to make sure it didn’t encroach on the base or interfere with takeoffs and landings, said Gary Gosliga, airport director for the March Inland Port Airport Authority, in an email to the Press Enterprise.
He said the Target warehouse was expected to employ between 1,250 and 3,000 people.
The new distribution center joins a warehouse construction boom that has made the Inland Empire dominant in the logistics industry in Southern California.
The Inland Empire region – comprising Riverside and San Bernardino counties – ranked third in the nation in 2021 with 10 leases of 1 million square feet or more, according to the commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE.
Last month, Newport-Beach-based KB Investment Development got the go-ahead to build two online distribution warehouses that come to 600,000 square feet in Riverside.
[PE] – Dana Bartholomew
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