Louisville-based Crossdock Development is at it again in Jeffersonville’s River Ridge Commerce Center.
By Marty Finley – Reporter, Louisville Business First
Jan 8, 2016 Updated Jan 8, 2016, 4:22pm EST
Crossdock president Lee Wilburn said he will start site work soon on a 668,000-square-foot speculative warehouse on River Ridge Parkway near Trey Street in the 6,000-acre Southern Indiana business park. Wilburn said it will cost about $25 million to build the non-expandable facility.
Crossdock has the 36 acres where the facility will be built under contract to purchase, and he expects to close on the property soon. The land currently is owned by the River Ridge Development Authority, which manages the operations of the sprawling business park.
Wilburn said the company’s land option has been negotiated at $65,000 per acre, so the land cost would be more than $2 million.
The property has not been assigned an address, but Wilburn said it will be near the manufacturing facility he developed for Swiss auto supplier Autoneum.
Wilburn said he expects the building to be “rack ready” for tenants within the next eight months and said heavy site work should start by March — or sooner if the weather cooperates.
He said the site will be able to accommodate parking for as many as 400 vehicles and will have truck docks. The building itself will be built with skylights and other natural lighting features to make the complex more welcoming.
Wilburn estimated the lease rate is likely to be $3.15 to $3.20 per square foot annually. He already has two prospects showing interest in the facility but declined to identify them, saying the building could be used for one large tenant or subdivided for multiple tenants.
Wilburn is one of the most active developers at River Ridge and one of the most successful. He played a role in the land sale that brought the Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) fulfillment center to River Ridge. He also developed the Standard Register Co. building at 700 Patrol Road and a fulfillment center for Catamaran LLC and its specialty pharmacy division, BriovaRx.
2015 was a huge year for Crossdock Development as it fully leased a building of more than 650,000 square feet at 800 Patrol Road in River Ridge to three tenants: Jeffersonville-based Shoe Sensation Inc.; Bose Corp., the Massachusetts company that designs speakers, radios, sound systems and other electronic devices; and Florida-based Saddle Creek Logistics Services.
We also reported last year that J. Knipper and Co. Inc., a New Jersey-based health care solutions company, had reached a deal with Crossdock to lease more than 300,000 square feet of warehouse space at 1250 Patrol Road.
Wilburn said 2016 is gearing up to be just as active.
“It’s all good,” he said. “It’s going to be a great year.”