Walmart doesn’t seem to be fazed by the Inland Empire’s shaky industrial market fundamentals. 

The Arkansas-based retail giant has purchased its distribution facility in Riverside for $223 million, L.A. Business First reported. The company’s real estate arm acquired the 507,000-square-foot cold storage facility from State Street Corporation. 

Walmart has been leasing the site at 1001 Columbia Avenue from State Street since 2010. It plans to continue temperature-controlled distribution operations from the property. Walmart’s nearest Supercenter locations are roughly five miles north at 1120 South Mount Vernon Avenue in Colton and eight miles south at 6250 Valley Springs Parkway in Riverside. 

The property comes complete with 22,500 square feet of office space as well as 42-foot clear height, 565 parking stalls, 120 trailer stalls and 98 dock doors. Walmart was represented in the transaction by JLL’s Scott Coyle, Peter McWilliams and Tim O’Rourke, while Eastdil Secured represented seller State Street Corporation. 

Walmart’s acquisition is a positive sign for the local industrial market as the broader sector in the Inland Empire and beyond struggles to find its footing. While other types of industrial facilities aren’t seeing outsize demand, properties such as these are seeing increasing interest, according to the JLL team. 

“Demand for temperature-controlled logistics infrastructure continues to outpace supply across the Greater Los Angeles basin,” Coyle said, per Connect CRE. “This transaction highlights the irreplaceable nature of existing large-format cold storage facilities and reinforces the Inland Empire’s role as a key market for Southern California’s food distribution ecosystem.” 

Cold storage facilities might be attracting investor interest, but the industrial market in the Inland Empire as a whole tells a different story. Vacancy rose in the first quarter to 8.1 percent with a total of 53.6 million square feet currently vacant across the submarket — a sharp drop from the 1.9 million empty square feet recorded in Q1 2022, according to Colliers’ Q1 2026 report. Net absorption reached its third-lowest total on record with negative 3.6 million square feet, while construction activity was low with 1.4 million square feet of new starts in the first quarter. 

— Chris Malone Méndez

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Distributions of trust assets to beneficiaries before the death of the settlor may allow for more flexibility than distributions of trust assets to beneficiaries after the death of the settlor.

In most instances, when a settlor creates a trust, they will appoint themselves as the trustee for their lifetime and name a successor trustee to take over management of the trust once they lose capacity or die.

If this was the approach used, then the settlor will retain control of trust assets for the remainder of their lifetime (provided they retain capacity) and can distribute them to whomever they please, whenever they please, as the only person they have to answer to is themselves. 

On the other hand, if the trustee appointed someone other than themselves as trustee, that person will have to abide by the terms of the trust when making distributions. For example, if the trust provisions call for them to make distributions to beneficiaries annually on the settlor’s birthday, they generally will need to follow that schedule. 

An Amazon warehouse near the gates of Los Angeles International Airport has sold for a record price as logistics centers near transportation hubs grow in value.

The real estate investment arm of global financial services firm Morgan Stanley recently paid $211 million for the distribution center on 98th Street amid several private long-term parking structures that serve LAX.

It was the biggest industrial real estate deal of the year in greater Los Angeles, according to real estate data provider CoStar.

The distribution center was built earlier this year to serve Amazon, which occupies the entire 143,060-square-foot facility in what CoStar said is “one of the most in-demand industrial corridors in the country.”

With industrial property vacancy near historic lows in the region and a shortage of land around LAX, investors continue to crowd into the few modern developments that come online, said Jesse Gundersheim, a senior analyst at CoStar.

Having a prominent tenant in place made the distribution center even more desirable, he said.

“The rise of e-commerce has fundamentally increased demand for well-located, modern logistics assets, which we believe are critical infrastructure for today’s economy and offer strong, long-term growth,” said Will Milam, head of U.S. Investments at Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing.

The seller was Overton Moore Properties, which paid $115 million for the site in 2020 before redeveloping it for Amazon. Torrance-based Overton Moore develops and operates logistics properties in the Western U.S.

Morgan Stanley manages $53 billion in gross real estate assets worldwide and has been building a foothold in industrial hubs near major ports and transportation links.

“We are pleased to acquire this facility in a highly strategic distribution location, underscoring our continued strategy of securing key net lease investments in core logistics markets,” said David Gross, managing director at Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing.

“This facility in particular is a critical asset for distribution and logistics needs in a significant region of Southern California where both a lack of space and regulatory hurdles present development constraints,” he said.

Industrial sales volume is up 4% year over year in Los Angeles as capital costs have come down, driven by lower interest rates, Gundersheim said.

The year-to-date deal count has topped 800 transactions, surpassing the full-year totals of the past two years, with sales volume above $5 billion.

Institutional investors such as Morgan Stanley have been responsible for about one-third of the acquisition volume in Los Angeles this year, Gundersheim said.

West Harbor Capital, a real estate investment firm focused exclusively on infill industrial properties, closed the $16.5-million acquisition of a 69,498-square-foot multi-tenant distribution facility located at 14313-14351 E Bonelli St. in the City of Industry.

Lee & Associates’ Steffan Morris and Eric Parkhurst represented West Harbor Capital, while CBRE’s Kent Stalwick represented the seller, Earl M. Hill Limited Partnership. The property was bought with a 28,240-square-foot vacancy and 41,258 square feet leased to two logistics tenants.

“It was a tremendous team effort to creatively structure the all-cash transaction and quickly close to meet the seller’s year-end closing target,“ said West Harbor Capital managing partner and co-founder Adam Deierling. “Looking ahead, we plan to modernize the property and reposition the current vacancy.“

Added managing partner and co-founder Eric Ruehle, “We expect to aggressively expand our presence over the next 18 months and believe it’s an opportune time for West Harbor to capture market share while creating value for our partners.”

Connect Industrial Midwest 2024 will take place on March 5, 2024, at Joe’s Live in Rosemont, Illinois. Click here for more information and to register.