Byhalia Industrial Park’s Growth Continues, This Time with Cereal Distributor Post

Wednesday, November 25th 2015

MEMPHIS, TN – Cereal maker Post Consumer Brands will open a distribution center employing 30 workers near Byhalia, Mississippi.

Panattoni Development Co. of Newport Beach, California, announced the deal Tuesday.

Post will lease a new distribution warehouse built without a tenant in hand, a sign of the speculative construction under way in suburban Mississippi as the logistics industry spills outside Memphis’ city limits.

The cereal warehouse is the second major tenant in the Gateway Global Logistics Center, an area of nearly 2,000 acres of farm land located between Byhalia and Collierville, Tennessee, near the junction of the new Interstate 269 and Tenn. 385.

The industrial park was developed by investor William Adair of Senatobia, Mississippi. Close by is the new Norfolk Southern intermodal rail yard developed on Adair property at Rossville, Tennessee.

The deal calls for Post to lease an existing never-used building that covers 554,040 square feet. The cereal maker, whose brands include Grape Nuts and Honey Bunches of Oats, has committed to an expansion that will increase the size to 677,170 square feet by May 2016.

Panattoni completed the building this year. The firm then began construction nearby on a 550,000-square-foot warehouse that can be expanded to 975,160 square feet. No tenant has been disclosed.

Both the building going up and the Post distribution center are located close to the 1-million-square-foot auto parts depot in the Gateway industrial park completed this year for Swedish truck maker Volvo Group.

Memphis’ Mississippi suburbs now contain about 50 million square feet of industrial property under roof.

Real estate developers contend warehouse development has stalled in Memphis, partly because of the lack of land served by suitable infrastructure. The vacancy rate on existing industrial buildings in southeast Memphis has narrowed to 11 percent.

Post Holdings Inc. of St. Louis combined its cereal and Mom brands this year into Post Consumer Brands, based in Lakeville, Minnesota.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/business/development/Byhalia-industrial-parks-growth-continues-this-time-with-cereal-distributor-353199311.html