Clarion and EBS buy 19-acre site in Colton for $61M

Clarion Partners and EBS Realty Partners have snapped up a 19-acre industrial site in the Inland Empire approved for a 412,000-square-foot warehouse for $61 million

The New York- and Newport Beach-based investors bought the property with two vacant industrial buildings and a large dirt lot at 275 and 375 De Berry Street in Colton, the Commercial Observer reported. The seller was Newport Beach-based Hager Pacific.

Clarion and EBS plan to demolish the buildings and break ground on the warehouse as soon as next fall.

Brokers Darla Longo, Barbara Perrier and Eric Cox of CBRE represented the seller.

Sales of industrial properties have slowed across the U.S. compared to last year, while Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire sales remain strong, according to the Observer.

The industrial vacancy rate in the first quarter across Southern California was 1.6 percent, while the U.S. industrial market vacancy dropped to a 27-year low of 4.2 percent, according to Savills.

At the same time, industrial demand has dropped, with the Inland Empire having negative net absorption — with demand less than supply — in the second quarter for the first time in 55 quarters, according to a Colliers report. Colton is in the Inland Empire region’s San Bernardino County.

In related deals, Clarion Partners, a real estate unit of New York-based Franklin Templeton Investments, appears ready to trade a San Francisco office tower it bought in 2014 for $107 million, or two-thirds less than the purchase price. EBS Realty, founded by Quinn Johnson in 2003 as Equity Building Services, teamed up with Connecticut-based Penwood Real Estate Investment Management in January to buy a 6.7-acre, 186,000-square-foot industrial campus in Irvine for $24 million.

— Dana Bartholomew