MRP Industrial leases 1.5M square feet in Harford County

Industrial activity in the region continues at a rapid pace as MRP Industrial has signed three firms to separate leases totaling more than 1.5 million square feet in Harford County.

All told, the three firms that signed leases will bring 400 full-time jobs to the area, according to the firm, at industrial and warehouse space in Aberdeen and Perryman.

“Each company, after completing a multi-state/county real estate search, recognized the tremendous business advantages of establishing and maintaining a presence in Harford County. … The demand for high-quality and strategically located industrial/distribution space remain at an all-time high throughout the mid-Atlantic region and the Interstate 95 corridor,” Lisa A. Goodwin, senior vice president of MRP Industrial ,said in a statement.

Kuehene + Nagel, a logistics provider, has leased 656,880 square feet of space at 1100 Woodley Road in the Eastgate 95 development. The facility is expected to be open in September and will create about 225 jobs.

MRP Industrial plans to construct a 600,000-square-foot building, which can be expanded to 700,000 square feet, next to 1100 Woodley Road for The Container Store. The company plans to hire roughly 150 employees to increase its business in 2019.

National building products firm PrimeSource also signed a 250,000-square-foot lease for a new building planned at 505 Advantage Ave. MRP Industrial is building a site to provide three acres of outdoor storage and loading on two sides of the building. PrimeSource is relocating from Aberdeen.

Demand for industrial product, particularly warehouse and distribution space, has been on a record pace. Demand is being driven primarily by e-commerce firms drawn to the region’s transportation infrastructure, such as Interstate 95, and proximity to roughly 10 million residents in the combined Baltimore and Washington metro areas.

Firms such as Best Buy, which announced a lease for more than 500,000 square feet of space in Anne Arundel County on Tuesday, have pushed down vacancy across the industrial sector to 6.2 percent, with 1.5 million square feet of speculative space in the pipeline and 65.2 percent already pre-leased.