Richmond BizSense – October 21, 2020
The industrial real estate sector has been busy in Chesterfield in recent weeks, with a longtime development landing its final tenant and a manufacturing facility in the southern part of the county selling for $21 million.
Chemicals giant DuPont Specialty Products recently signed a lease for 133,000 square feet in a soon-to-be built final building in the James River Logistics Center at 1551 Bellwood Road.
DuPont is already a tenant with 813,000 square feet across two buildings at the 77-acre industrial park that Devon USA began developing in the early 2000s.
Devon USA Managing Director Ed Mitchell said DuPont had been interested in another newly built building within the park before Amazon swooped in this spring and took the 321,000-square-foot warehouse.
“We went back to DuPont and said, ‘Bad news guys, Amazon’s taking the whole building. But we’ve got enough room here that we can provide the amount of space you were looking at with your own free-standing building.” Mitchell said.
Not long after, DuPont signed on to take all of what will be the park’s final building. The building’s name, Project Gunpowder, is a nod to DuPont’s early days in the 1800s when it manufactured gunpowder.
The land it’ll rise on is currently a pad site, and Mitchell said they hope to begin work soon and complete the building in the spring. Once DuPont is moved in, the firm will occupy 946,000 square feet in the industrial park.
The building will be managed by XPO Logistics, a publicly-traded contractor. Mitchell said the building will be staffed by between 12 and 15 people, most of whom will be relocating from one of DuPont’s nearby warehouses.
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