The former Bainbridge Naval Training Center at Port Deposit will be developed for up to 3.7 million square feet of logistics and distribution space across 440 acres, it was announced Friday.
The site is being developed through a joint venture partnership between MRP Industrial, a Baltimore-based commercial real estate and investment company, and Hillwood Development Company LLC, a real estate development and investment group in Dallas. At full build-out, upward of 2,000 new jobs could be supported at the site, depending on the specific requirements of end-users.
The initial phase of the project includes the private investment in more than $30 million of infrastructure improvements which will be dedicated to Cecil County and the town of Port Deposit upon completion in the fall.
Public improvements include the expansion of both water and sanitary services engineered to support both Bainbridge and the surrounding community. Park infrastructure also includes the construction of approximately three miles of public roads to connect the park to the three state highways surrounding the perimeter of the formal Naval Training Base.
In partnership with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the development team has also dedicated 96 acres into a permanent Forrest Conservation easement further enhancing the park like setting throughout the future logistics campus.
Later this spring, the site will be mass graded to pad ready condition and speculative construction will commence on the first two of four planned buildings on the site – totaling just over 1 million square feet and 605,280 square feet respectively. These two single-story speculative Class “A” warehouse logistics buildings are projected to deliver in the first quarter of 2023.
Each building is designed to achieve LEED Certification with LED lighting, white reflective roofs, and other energy saving features. Both sites feature deep truck courts to support the movement of large tractor trailers and segregated parking fields for employee and visitor parking. The large, open space floorplates are suitable for a range of light manufacturing, warehouse, logistics and last-mile operations and can accommodate single and multi-tenant uses.
Companies that lease space at Bainbridge Logistics Center can take advantage of a set of incentives, including the Cecil County Enterprise Zone property and income tax credits, State Sales and Use Tax Exemption for construction materials, warehousing and manufacturing equipment and the Foreign Trade Zone.
Bohler Engineering and G.W Stephens & Associates partnered as the project’s civil engineer. MacGregor Associates will serve as the project Architect. The Conlan Company has been selected as the General Contractor supported by site contractor DXI Construction.
According to CBRE’s First Quarter 2022 industrial market report, robust leasing activity in 2021 has produced a 5.1% vacancy rate in the Harford/Cecil County submarket which includes approximately 35.2 million square feet of space. In the larger Baltimore North I-95 Corridor, an area encompassing the southeast side of Baltimore, east Baltimore County and all of Harford and Cecil counties, more than 11 million square feet of industrial space was leased last year and rents for Class “A” space rose by 25.5%.
Changes in consumer shopping habits fueled by the pandemic resulted in U.S. ecommerce sales eclipsing the $1 trillion mark, which marks an all-time high, a trend that had been edging up over the past five years, but which accelerated dramatically over the past 18 months. Real estate experts now believe that shopping patterns have permanently changed, and according to information released by the US Census Bureau, more than 13% of all retail purchases now come via digital orders.
Over the next five years, nearly 1.5 billion square feet of logistics space will be added to the worldwide inventory of space in response to the surge in e-commerce, according to CBRE.
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