Gale Co. Gears Up for 175-Acre Biz Park

As seen on GlobeSt.com
Gale Co. Gears Up for 175-Acre Biz Park
By Brian K. Miller
Last updated: Mar 29, 2004 08:40AM

LIVERMORE, CA-The Gale Co. will begin $15 million worth of infrastructure work here later this year for an eventual three-million-sf business park worth about $250 million. The Florham Park, NJ-based international developer acquired the 175-acre parcel in 2000 in partnership with Pacific Coast Partners and recently received project approval from the City of Livermore.

The land is located at the corner of West Jack London Boulevard and the new state highway, SR-84, adjacent to Livermore Municipal Airport and is within a half mile of the junction of Airway Avenue and Interstate 580, the main east/west highway in the East Bay region. Dobrott says Colliers International has been given the exclusive marketing assignment, Ware Malcomb will be the project architect and Kier & Wright is the civil engineer. Tenant amenities will include a 2.6-acre park that will connect to a regional trails system.

Gale Co. managing partner John Dobrott tells GlobeSt.com that Oaks Business Park will take between five and seven years to build out once the infrastructure is complete in mid-2005. The property is broken up into 36 individual land parcels and entitled for light industrial, R&D;, office space and ancillary commercial uses. About 26 acres have been tied up by government entities that will pay between $10 and $15 per sf for the land once the streets and utilities are installed.

Gale Co. has a global portfolio of more than 55 million sf and maintains joint venture investment relationships with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, UBS, Praedium and Pacific Coast Capital Partners. Dobrott says the company opened its first West Coast office in 1997 with the long-term goal of being heavily invested in San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

“We were immediately able to get some good sized projects in Southern California; our intention was always to expand up into the Bay Area but this was the only buy at the time that we thought was a good one,” says Dobrott. “Fortunately, that is the only purchase we made, because the market has turned so far south; but the next few years will see the market reemerge and we will be getting involved in a bigger way.”