SAN DIEGO – Following a green light from the City of Carlsbad last week, H.G. Fenton Company announces that it will begin grading later this month on Carlsbad Raceway Business Park.  The master-planned business community could accommodate up to 1.5 million square feet of industrial, office and support space in phased development over several years.

The 147.1 gross-acre project is located at the northeast intersection of Palomar Airport Road and Melrose Drive in the city of Carlsbad.  The site was the former Carlsbad Raceway – which was founded by the Grismer family and later sold to another developer in the late 1980s.  The City of Carlsbad has slated the property for commercial development to help meet growing demand for industrial and office space that is being driven by new residential development, quality business parks and traffic patterns favoring a North County commute.

“More than 5,150 residential units are approved or under construction in Carlsbad with another 1,500 already in the planning stages,” said Kevin Hill, vice president of leasing with H.G. Fenton Company.  “H.G. Fenton Company is committed to building quality places for people to work and live in key locations throughout the county.  We look forward to creating a thoughtfully planned project that meets the city’s objectives and that adds value to the Carlsbad community.”

Now that the tentative map has been unanimously approved by the City of Carlsbad, H.G. Fenton Company will begin planning the project which is authorized for manufacturing and processing facilities, research and testing facilities, and business and professional offices.  The company estimates it will take one year to complete preliminary grading and infrastructure. An architect has not yet been named.

“Approximately 50 percent – or 72 acres – of the site will be retained as open space, with the rest planned for low-rise campus-style development with the extensive use of landscaping and easy walk-up parking,” said Hill.  “H.G. Fenton Company will also be implementing a number of improvements for the City of Carlsbad, including the widening of approximately 1,600 feet of Palomar Airport Road to enhance traffic flow through the area.”  The site will also accommodate an extension of Melrose Drive between Palomar Airport Road and the Vista city limits.

H.G. Fenton Company purchased the Carlsbad Raceway site from Hudson Advisors in late September for $16.25 million with Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial’s Dennis Visser, Louay Alsadek and Mark Emerick representing both parties. The Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial team will also be handling marketing efforts for Carlsbad Raceway Business Park which will likely include a combination of speculative industrial/R&D product, owner-user lot sales and build to-suits for lease or sale.

“H.G. Fenton Company’s reputation as a go-to developer offers added value to companies who want facilities that can meet their unique needs including the flexibility for future expansion,” said Visser.  “The company is committed to helping tenants through all phases of the development process and delivering high quality facilities that meet their scheduling and cost parameters.”

The transaction is H.G. Fenton Company’s second land acquisition in Carlsbad so far this year and brings to six the number of industrial projects the company owns or has under development in the area. Earlier this year, H.G. Fenton Company acquired a 54-acre parcel in Carlsbad – the largest remaining piece of employment land located west of El Camino Real between Faraday and College avenues – and will co-develop the property with Newport National Corp. into an office and research park with up to 400,000 square feet of space. The company also owns 523,000 square feet of existing space in several strategically-located parks in Carlsbad, and is in the process of expanding Carlsbad Corporate Center with an additional 110,000 square feet of multi-tenant space to meet the needs of small and start-up companies.

“The available supply of office space in the North County area, and in Carlsbad in particular, has been diminishing due to limited new construction and steadily increasing demand for space,” said Hill.  “Our focus in Carlsbad is to provide a variety of business location options that will support the area’s growing base of entrepreneurial and start-up companies as well as meet the needs of larger companies that prefer a North County location.”

The H.G. Fenton Company industrial portfolio – which totals over 3 million square feet of space throughout San Diego County – has been carefully structured to give all its existing and new tenants flexibility, as well as the ability to relocate to other H.G. Fenton Company projects as their business requirements change.

Founded in 1906, the H.G. Fenton Company is one of San Diego’s largest private real estate owners and developers with a successful track record in the development of master-planned business communities.  The company currently is completing development on the final lot in the 1-million square foot Mission Valley Heights business park, and is under construction on the first phase of Fenton Technology Park in Sorrento Mesa which will add 1 million square feet of space in phased development over several years. Additionally, H.G. Fenton Company owns nine apartment communities with a total of 2,484 units in key areas throughout the county.

H.G. Fenton Company offices are located at 7588 Metropolitan Dr. in the company’s Mission Valley Heights project in San Diego.