Hillwood Development Co. Buys Inland Empire Speedway, A 600-Acre Development Site
A roughly 600-acre Inland Empire development site has attracted some attention from well-known Texas companies.
Dallas-based Hillwood Development Co. purchased “most of” the 633-acre Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, from NASCAR for $543.7M, Commercial Observer reported.
CBRE announced Tuesday that a fund sponsored by CBRE Investment Management invested in a 364-acre Phase 1 at the raceway site at 9300 Cherry Ave. for an undisclosed sum.
"The land is currently earmarked for the first phase of Speedway Commerce Center, a planned, multi-building, state-of-the-art logistics project" and up to 6.6M SF of industrial space called Speedway Commerce Center, CBRE said in a release.
Representatives for CBRE and Hillwood declined to comment further.
NASCAR had previously announced that a race last weekend would be the last, but the group does still own approximately 90 acres “for a potential half-mile track,” CO reported.
“The Inland Empire boasts some of the strongest investment fundamentals of any logistics market in the nation with a vacancy rate of 1.2% and rent growth of 35.4% in 2022,” CBRE said in a release. Fontana’s vacancy rate is 0.3%, with rent growth of 36.9% in 2022.
But as the area attracts logistics companies and industrial real estate developers and investors, locals continue to push back against the proliferation of warehouses. The city of Redlands is weighing a ban on new warehouse developments, though it punted on making a decision at a meeting last week, the San Bernardino Sun reported. Other cities have considered moratoriums or enacted temporary ones as a general pushback against the growing number of warehouses in the Inland Empire expands.
