MetLIfe teaming up with Panattoni on $63M warehouse developments

Insurance giant MetLife said it and Panattoni Development Co. are investing nearly $63 million in three new industrial parks totaling more than 900,000 square feet. One is Des Moines Creek Business Park south of Sea-Tac Airport and the others are in Sumner.

MetLife will be the majority owner and Panattoni will be managing minority partner, according to a news release from New York City-based MetLife.

“These three industrial parks we are developing in the Seattle area demonstrate our commitment to continuing to diversify our real estate equity holdings through the addition of high-quality industrial assets,” said Robert Merck, senior managing director and global head of real estate for MetLife in the release.

The largest of the projects is Des Moines Creek Business Park. It will have three buildings totaling 535,830 square feet on 37 acres bounded by South 216th and 208th streets, 24th Avenue South on the east and a portion of Des Moines Creek Park on the west.

MetLife and Panattoni have options to expand the site by 1 million square feet.

The Port of Seattle last year picked Panattoni to develop 87 acres of the Des Moines Site. Panattoni is based in Newport Beach, California, and has a Seattle office.

In Sumner, the projects are the 206,463-square-foot Steele Building on 8.6 acres at 1565 Fryar Ave., and the 159,250-square-foot Tamarack Building on 7 acres at 1607 136th Ave. E.

According to a flyer from leasing agent Kidder Mathews, Steele Building will have a 32-foot clear height and can be divisible to 50,000 square feet. Posted lease rates are 40 cents a square foot for shell and 85 cents for office.

According to a flyer from leasing agent Neil Walter Co., the Tamarack Building will have a 30-foot clear height and can be divisible to 60,000 square feet. Posted lease rates are 41 cents for shell and 85 cents for office.

MetLife says the Steele and Tamarack buildings should be finished by mid-2015. The Des Moines buildings will be done by the end of 2015. Sierra Construction is building hte Des Moines and Tamarack projects, and Poe Construction is doing the Steele building.

The architects are Innova Architects (Tamarack), Synthesis (Steele) and Collins Woerman (Des Moines).

Construction of all three projects is expected to create 600 jobs.

In July, MetLife and Panattoni announced they would team up to develop an initial portfolio of eight industrial facilities in four states totaling nearly 6 million square feet.

The first is the Lambert Farms Distribution Center near Atlanta, a 3 million-square-foot development. Seattle is the second market.

The companies also plan to build in Chicago, the Inland Empire market of California, and a second project in the Northeast Atlanta sub-market.