Work starts on 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse near Rickenbacker

VanTrust Real Estate has broken ground on a 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse near Rickenbacker International Airport, as the boom in online shopping continues to drive demand for central Ohio warehouse space.

The Kansas City-based company, with offices in Columbus, is erecting the building in Rickenbacker Exchange at Commercial Point, a 900-acre industrial park on State Route 104 north of Route 762 in Commercial Point. 

VanTrust is launching the building after leasing a 1-million-square-foot building next door to an unidentified Fortune 500 company. That building was also built "on spec," that is, without a committed tenant.

“Having the first building lease up so quickly generated a lot of enthusiasm to start developing the second building,” said VanTrust Executive Vice President Andy Weeks.

VanTrust is planning to build two additional speculative warehouses, one 995,000 square feet and the other 850,000 square feet, in Commercial Point. 

In addition, VanTrust is building two distribution buildings in the New Albany Industrial Park, adding to the two it already built and leased. One of the new buildings, 250,000 square feet, is fully leased, and 30% of the second building, 315,000 square feet, is spoken for, said Weeks.

Weeks said demand for industrial and distribution space is coming from all directions.

"We have spec buildings all across the country and all those buildings have significant leasing activity because of a variety of factors," he said.

"Certainly ecommerce is a big one, and the pandemic accelerated that growth, but we're also seeing it from auto parts manufacturers, tech companies, brick-and-mortar retailers, food and beverage. Every geographic area, every size of building is seeing a great amount of leasing activity now."

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker