TMCnet News
Motorsports company to open distribution center in Mississippi(Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 4--A company specializing in motorcycles and ATVs is opening a new distribution and retail center in Southaven, Miss., the second major new distribution center to land there in less than a month. Portland, Ore.-based MotoSport Inc., an online retailer of motorcycle and ATV parts, apparel and accessories, has signed a lease for 291,672 square feet at Building B at Industrial Development International's Stateline Business Park on Stateline Road near Swinnea. MotoSport will close an existing distribution center in Portland and open the Southaven distribution center in the third quarter. The Southaven location will include a small retail store for returned or overstocked items. The national distribution center will employ at least 200 people when it opens, but that number is expected to grow over time, company officials said. "The company is growing quite quickly," said Jon White, president and CEO of MotoSport. "We're a direct-to-consumer merchant, no brick and mortar, and we are known for having it in stock and getting it out quickly, and that is why we are coming to the Memphis area." MotoSport had looked at Memphis but decided to do business in Mississippi. "It was financially more viable than the Memphis side," White said. "There are better incentives to move to that side of the line." Patrick Burke of CB Richard Ellis Memphis and Bayne Porter of CBRE Atlanta represented MotoSport. Burke said the fast pace of the project and the ease of obtaining tax savings -- a constant refrain from industrial customers, brokers, developers and consultants -- drove the project to Southaven. A series of cost comparisons provided in a 2005 report by NexGen Advisors and URS Corp. for the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development showed DeSoto County had lower annual costs for space, labor and property taxes than Memphis before any incentives were factored in. DeSoto's simpler, more efficient tax abatement programs helped trump Shelby County's more laborious payment-in-lieu-of-taxes system. "[DeSoto County's] incentives are more generous, simpler, and require less time and legal costs to secure ... as compared to Memphis," the report stated. Distribution and logistics warehouses, long the meat and potatoes of the Memphis economy, are increasingly turning to DeSoto County. Most of the new "big box" warehouses being built in the market are going up in Southaven or Olive Branch, Miss. Panattoni Development Co. added 525,000 square inside Shelby County at Memphis Oaks III in the third quarter, but 2.9 million square feet were expected to be delivered in DeSoto in fourth quarter 2007 and first quarter 2008. In a slow year for the Memphis industrial market, which includes DeSoto County, IDI has been on a tear at Stateline, leasing 1.2 million square feet at the park this year. When fully built out, Stateline will total 3.9 million square feet of industrial space. Trane, one of the world's largest producers of heating and air-conditioning systems, recently tapped the Southaven site for its new national parts distribution center, a project that will create as many as 140 jobs. Trane, which will vacate 100,000 square feet at 4250 Concord in Memphis, was considering space at two other Memphis properties: 350,000 square feet at Pro Logis Memphis Distribution Center and 350,000 square feet at Summit Distribution Center, 5050 Holmes. And Greenville, S.C.-based ScanSource, a distributor of specialty technology products, signed a lease for 600,000 square feet of the 740,000-square-foot Building F at Stateline, replacing the company's existing 367,000-square-foot facility at Memphis Distribution Center. "We were pleased when Motosport selected Stateline Business Park for their national distribution point -- this put Stateline leasing activity just below 1.3 million square feet for 2007 when you also consider the ScanSource and Trane deals," said Tim Moore, vice president of leasing for IDI. "Most importantly, these deals accounted for 800,000 square feet of net absorption for the Memphis-area distribution market. These companies' decisions to enter and grow in our market is a great endorsement for Memphis' role in the national supply chain." To see more of The Commercial Appeal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.commercialappeal.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |