APEX Business Park Building 3 at 16610 140 Ave. started as the largest speculative industrial building built in the market. The Panattoni Canada-developed building, which is jointly owned by Manulife Investment Management and pre-leased to MTE Logistix.
For its distinction of being the apex of development projects in the region, Panattoni's 548,124-square-foot industrial project in the Alberta capital has been chosen as the CoStar Impact Award's Commercial Development of the Year in Edmonton by a panel of local real estate professionals.
Construction on the LEED-certified building began in 2021, with the city of Edmonton’s permitting processes helping deliver the building in the third quarter of 2022.
It is the third building developed at the Apex Business Park, located between the existing first two buildings, which included a new distribution facility built for McKesson Canada.
The initial plan for the final phase of the development was to construct, speculatively, two 225,000-square-foot industrial buildings. However, the combination of the two buildings into one brings efficiencies that most logistics and warehouse-oriented tenants prefer, which include full building circulation, a fenced yard, higher clear height and high dock door counts.
The confidence in shifting to a purely large-bay strategy for Apex 3 came from a well-known and significant increase in demand for warehousing and logistics space in the country.
Edmonton, like most markets, saw strong leasing activity in larger bay spaces from warehouse and logistics users. Major brokerages stated that demand for large-footprint spaces across the country outstripped supply. Significant expansions by companies such as Amazon took away large parcels of land from the market that would have otherwise provided large-bay speculative products to users.
These factors and local expertise in the market supported a business case that such a sizable building would be absorbed by the market in Edmonton, despite nothing of that scale ever being brought to the market before on a purely speculative basis.
About the Project: Apex Business Park is located along 170th Street in northwest Edmonton, close to major transportation routes, including Anthony Henday Drive and Highway 16 (Yellowhead Highway) and near the CN Intermodal Yard. Building 3 was designed for larger warehousing uses with its 36’ clear height throughout the building.
Compared to traditional 28’ clear height buildings, this allows for four additional pallet positions per racking bay. The additional height combined with the 56’ column width make the Apex 3 building extremely efficient for warehouse layouts.
What the Judges Said: "One of Edmonton's largest industrial lease deals," said Scott Hughes of Re/Max Commercial.
They Made It Happen: Panattoni Development Managers Mark Edwards and Ben Milligan, Brad Hoffman, executive vice president of Panattoni, Philip Ristevski, managing director and head of Canadian real estate development at Manulife Investment Management, Bryan Siekierko, managing director of portfolio management of Manulife Investment Management, and Carl Ries, director of asset management at Manulife Investment Management.
