Nestle Waters signs big warehouse deal in Plant City
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Nov 16, 2020

Nestle Waters North America has signed a deal in Plant City, bringing a large industrial park one step closer to full occupancy.

Nestle has committed to 282,639 square feet in Building 300 at County Line Logistics Center, a 1.1 million-square-foot industrial park that broke ground speculatively in 2016. Developer McCraney Property Co. recently sold the park and five other warehouses in the Southeastern U.S. to Nuveen Global Investments for $272 million.

The deal means Building 300 is fully leased, said John Dunphy, managing director at JLL Inc. in Tampa, who represented Nuveen in the deal. Michelle Senner and Ed Miller of Colliers International Tampa Bay represented Nestle.

There are two other vacancies left in the park, Dunphy said: Building 100 has 90,000 square feet available, and there's 166,000 square feet vacant in Building 400. But he said he doesn't expect either to remain available for long; interest in Plant City's industrial real estate, like the rest of the Interstate 4 corridor, is as high as it's ever been.

"County Line Logistics Center was one of the first business parks to break ground on Plant City’s side of County Line Road, and we’re thrilled to see Building 300 fully leased," Jake Austin, president of the Plant City Economic Development Corp., told the Tampa Bay Business Journal. "Market demand continues to outweigh our impressive supply even through the Covid-19 pandemic. We are committed to keeping up by supporting the various active developers in our market.”

The interest in Plant City, Dunphy said, is driven by a lack of available space in East Tampa as well as its position along I-4. And while e-commerce is driving much of the demand, there's interest from a wide spectrum of industries.

"Of the deals that have been done — it's very, very broad based," he said. "Vacancy rates will drop to historic lows any day now. The market is as good as I’ve ever seen it."