UPS wraps up Sparks real estate play

The sale last month of the 396,080-square-foot Sparks Business Center wrapped up a big play in Truckee Meadows real estate by UPS.

The Atlanta-based company still owns its West Coast distribution center in Sparks, but it's finished selling most of the other property in the area that it began developing in the late 1980s.

UPS wasn't talking much last week about its property dealings in the Reno area, other than to confirm its sale of the Sparks Business Center to a subsidiary of Honolulu-based Alexander & Baldwin.

Representatives of Trammell Crow Co., which represented UPS through the distribution company's history of industrial development in the region, said the sale of the Sparks Business Center for $20 million reflects a strong demand for industrial real estate in the Reno area.

The center includes four buildings on 20.7 acres at the corner of Prater Way and Sparks Boulevard.

"There are many big industrial suitors that want to be in this market," said Par Tolles, area director for Trammell Crow in Reno.

He said the interest in Reno properties is particularly noteworthy because the market for industrial properties is weak nationwide.

Brent Davis, the Trammell Crow senior vice president who handled the transaction, said the size and quality of the Sparks Commerce Center contributed to the hot interest in the property.

When UPS established its West Coast center in Sparks in the late 1980s, Tolles said, the company also purchased about 100 acres in the area for speculative industrial development.

It didn't hurt anything, of course, that the industrial tenants were likely to be users of UPS distribution services and might even choose to locate next to a big UPS center exactly for that convenience.

Trammell Crow developed the property and handled the leasing.

UPS began exiting the development project in August 2001, when it sold the Vista Distribution Center, 1.1 million square feet of space in six buildings along Vista Boulevard between Brierley and Prater Way.

ProLogis, based in Aurora, Colo., purchased the property.

Next up was the sale of undeveloped property UPS owned on a nearby hillside above Northern Nevada Medical Center, followed by the conclusion with last month's sale of the Sparks Business Center.

Other than its core real estate the distribution hub property UPS' only holding in the area is a retail pad at the corner of Vista and Brierley, Davis said.