Newcastle Fuels Inland Empire Project With $65M Loan

Newcastle Partners has secured a $65.1 million construction loan for Ellis Avenue Logistics Center, a 631,011-square-foot industrial project in Perris, Calif., within the Inland Empire market. Bank OZK issued the debt in a deal arranged by JLL Capital Markets.

Work is slated to begin early this year, while completion and stabilization are projected for the end of the year.

Located at 409 E. Ellis Ave., the development is less than 1 mile from Interstate 215 and a Metrolink station. The site is adjacent to an approximately 800,000-square-foot warehouse leased by Home Depot. Blackstone paid $184.9 million for that asset in 2023, Yardi Matrix data shows.

The facility will feature a clear height of 40 feet, 87 dock-high doors and three grade-level doors, 205 trailer and 176 car parking spots.

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JLL Capital Markets Senior Managing Director Greg Brown, Associate Allie Black and Senior Analyst Nick Englhard led the team that represented Newcastle in the debt acquisition proceedings.

Newcastle Partners focuses exclusively on West Coast gateway markets, where it has completed the ground-up development of more than 10 million square feet of industrial projects since its inception in 1999. With acquisitions included, the figures exceed 18 million square feet, representing more than $2.3 billion in investment.

Last year, it broke ground on a speculative 406,138-square-foot development in Hesperia, Calif., about 56 miles away from the Ellis Avenue Logistics Center in Perris. The project’s delivery is expected this year.

Inland Empire industrial deliveries low

Speaking of industrial completions, the Inland Empire witnessed the delivery of nearly 11 million square feet of space in 2025, marking a sharp 50.7 percent decline year-over-year, according to Yardi Matrix data. That marked the lowest output of new supply in more than a decade.

The market still held 6.9 million square feet of space underway in December, representing 1.0 percent of stock, a Yardi Matrix report shows. Meanwhile, the vacancy rate stood at 8.4 percent, 80 basis points below the national average, while the metro average rent went up 6.4 percent year-over-year to $11.86 per square foot in December, a figure 25.2 percent below the U.S. average.