Duke Realty plans 268,000-square-foot warehouse in Kent

Indiana-based Duke Realty plans to construct a single-story, 268,499-square-foot warehouse in the Kent Valley to provide lease space for light manufacturing and warehouse users.

Duke Realty, which started in Indianapolis in 1972, filed permits in December with the city of Kent to build the warehouse in the 7400 block of South 202nd Street. The company bought the 12.2-acre site for $23.5 million in October, according to King County property sale records.

The site is currently in development plan approval with the city. Construction is expected to begin in mid-2021 and finish in the summer of 2022, according to Duke Realty.

“Duke Realty identified the Seattle market as a strategic growth market due to its proximity to ports, population growth and land constraints,” said Mark Crawford, vice president and head of acquisitions for Duke Realty, in a Feb. 4 news release. “In 2020, through the acquisition of existing buildings and land for future development, we have roughly doubled our exposure to this important logistics market.”

The company also acquired a 63,546-square-foot facility at 21214 66th Ave. S., in the heart of the Kent Valley submarket, for $13.4 million in September. The facility is currently leased to La-Z-Boy, a leading furniture and home goods retailer.

In addition to the Kent purchases, Duke Realty recently purchased The Cubes at DuPont, a three-building, 1.6 million-square-foot industrial park about 18 miles south of Tacoma. The modern, bulk distribution facilities are located along Interstate 5 adjacent to Duke Realty’s existing one million-square-foot distribution facility. The company paid $221 million last year for The Cubes, according to several media reports.

Once the planned development project in Kent is complete, Duke Realty’s Seattle portfolio will total approximately four million square feet.

“These acquisitions and further investments in redevelopment and modernization secure Duke Realty’s position as an industrial real estate leader committed to growing it’s footprint in the Seattle market, an area where sites for new development projects are scarce,” said Mark Hosfeld, vice president and market leader for Duke Realty’s Seattle operations. “Low vacancy rates and high demand continue to drive Duke Realty’s purchases and development plans. Today’s logistics tenants in Seattle want modern, convenient facilities close to ports, highways and consumers.”

The projects are strategically located in the Puget Sound submarkets of DuPont and Kent with convenient access to I-5, just miles from Sea-Tac Airport and the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma.

Duke Realty has approximately 159 million rentable square feet of warehouse and distribution facilities in 20 key U.S. logistics markets.

Bridge Development Partners warehouse plans

The plans for the large warehouse in Kent by Duke Realty follows an announcement in December by Chicago-based Bridge Development Partners to build two state-of-the-art industrial facilities totaling 309,028 square feet at the former REI headquarters, 6750 S. 228th St.

Bridge Development bought the 15.8 acres from REI for $24.6 million in December. Building demolition is expected to start this month. The new project is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022.

REI, which opened its headquarters in Kent in 1988, announced in 2020 that employees would transition to working from home or small remote campuses. The company, founded in 1938 in Seattle, had planned to move last year to a new site in Bellevue, but sold that property.