Amazon leases 336K sf industrial building in Oakland, plans to open it this month

The e-commerce company’s lease is the largest signed this year in the nine-city Interstate 880 industrial real estate market

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and 5800 Coliseum Way in Oakland (Getty, Prologis)
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and 5800 Coliseum Way in Oakland (Getty, Prologis)

Amazon took more than 300,000 square feet of industrial space in Oakland that it plans to open to workers this month. It’s the single largest industrial lease signed in the Bay Area’s nine-city Interstate 880 corridor this year.

The e-commerce company agreed to rent a 336,680-square-foot warehouse at 5800 Coliseum Way, expanding the company’s industrial presence in the Bay Area, spokesperson Natalie Wolfrom said Monday. The building will enable Amazon to operate its Amazon Logistics service, the delivery arm of its business, Wolfrom said.

The company was mainly attracted to the Coliseum Way building due to its proximity to freeways and public transit, she said. The Prologis-owned property is nestled between Interstate 880 and State Route 185 and has a pair of BART stations within a two-mile radius. It’s also less than five miles from the Port of Oakland and the city’s airport.

Amazon signed a long-term lease on the building, Wolfrom said, although she declined to disclose how much Amazon is paying to rent the space or the exact length of its term.

According to CompStak, a property records website, the company signed a 10-year lease that expires in 2031. The lease, which hasn’t been previously reported, was signed in April, Amazon said. It was the largest lease of its kind in terms of square footage in the Bay Area’s I-880 industrial real estate market this year, according to a person with knowledge of the deal who wasn’t allowed to talk publicly about it.

That market, which includes Oakland and eight other cities, is strong due to record-high property values and low inventory, according to commercial real estate firm Lee & Associates’ third-quarter I-880 corridor report.

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Amazon said it’s too soon to know how it specifically plans to use the Coliseum Way warehouse and did not have job creation numbers to share, although Wolfrom said she hopes to have that data soon. It expects to open the site to employees sometime this month, Wolfrom said.

Last month, the company acquired the site of a four-building office and research campus in Milpitas in Silicon Valley for $123 million. It will likely redevelop the property, which has been vacant since 2015, although it hasn’t solidified plans for what it intends to build there, Wolfrom said last month. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Amazon intends to build a distribution center on almost 60 acres of undeveloped land in the Tri-Valley city of Pleasanton.

The company last month reported slower annual revenue growth of 15 percent in the third quarter, compared with 37 percent growth in the third quarter of 2020. Yet it’s pushing forward on plans to continue expanding its operations in the Bay Area. It will submit a formal proposal to the city and county of San Francisco on Nov. 15 to build a warehouse and shipping center with 650,000 square feet of delivery space, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The project represents Amazon’s largest warehouse in San Francisco.

JLL represented landlord Prologis in Amazon’s lease on 5800 Coliseum Way, while John McManus of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant. McManus declined to comment, while JLL representatives did not respond to emails seeking comment.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to add in fifth paragraph that Amazon said it signed the lease in April.