Tacoma firearms company relocating to Lakewood is latest boost to area seeing growth
You could say everything business-wise is going Lakewood’s way these days.
Near the end of a three-and-a-half hour City Council meeting Jan. 4, city manager John Caulfield announced that Aero Precision, a firearms parts and components manufacturer in Tacoma, was planning to relocate to the Lakewood Industrial Park.
The relocation from Tacoma brings hundreds of jobs with plans for expansion, potentially adding 60-100 jobs at the Lakewood site.
It was the latest in a series of announcements involving big-ticket business investments in Lakewood, including a new Amazon shipping center and a California real estate investment company’s entry into Washington state with the purchase of Lakewood Business Park.
Lakewood Mayor Don Anderson, in a recent phone interview, told The News Tribune that years of planning have started to coalesce into all the new development.
“I think it’s an attitude of being business friendly and having an inviting table that is set for folks. I’ve always liked to say that being lucky is being prepared for opportunity,” Anderson said. “And that’s kind of where we are.”
AERO PRECISION
Finalized plans for Aero Precision’s move were confirmed this week by Aero Precision CEO Scott Dover.
“Tacoma has been home to us for over 20 years. And, you know, it’s been a good relationship with the city and helping us grow to where we are today,” Dover told The News Tribune in a phone interview Tuesday.
“As our business has grown, we’ve had to look for a consolidation plan. ... Lakewood is just much more of an alignment for us.”
Dover said that the implementation of a Tacoma municipal tax on firearms and ammunition, a move company representatives spoke out against at the time, was not a significant motivation for the move..
“That initiative, it was certainly a setback, but that didn’t play into the overall strategy here,” said Dover. “We were looking for just a space that fit our needs, our business needs. And, you know, Lakewood really was the top contender, as we’ve looked at various locations.”
The move will bring the company into one location at 268,000 square feet in the industrial park, as opposed to the seven buildings it operates out of now in Tacoma.
“Right now, we’re kind of scattered over a two- to three-block area in Tacoma, and this will get all of those people under one roof, which is huge for our business,” said Brian Deal, vice president of marketing for the company.
Deal said the move will start in February and be taken in phases, with completion by the end of year. The company will have more than 500 employees in Lakewood and has more than 800 total on its payroll, which includes workers outside of the area, according to Deal.
Maria Lee, media representative for the city of Tacoma, said in an emailed response to questions: “We have been aware that the company has needed more space for several years and, although they had not asked for our assistance recently, we had previously worked with them and researched prospective locations. Unfortunately, due to the facility size and locational requirements, it was extremely challenging.”
She added that there had been “numerous business retention visits with the company in partnership with the Economic Development Board staff.”
Anderson noted at the Jan. 4 meeting that he was pleased recruiting efforts for the company panned out.
“Those are highly technical machinist family-wage jobs. ... So to get those jobs in Lakewood is a big deal,” he said.
In an interview with The News Tribune, Anderson elaborated on the company’s move:
‘They were looking to get newer space, expand. And they liked the business climate in Lakewood and liked Lakewood Industrial Park’s facilities and so they’re moving. A significant part about that is that those are not even your typical warehouse jobs or technical manufacturing jobs. And they pay particularly well, they recruit nationally. So, that’s really a boon for living wage jobs and keeping people out of commutes.”
Amazon coming, too
News last week also broke that Amazon is opening a site at the Lakewood Logistics Center II, developed by Black Creek Group, a Denver-based real estate investment management firm.
Puget Sound Business Journal also reported that Tesla might be considering space there, too, though officials on Tuesday downplayed that prospect and did not confirm any deal was in the works.
“We have good activity, but we don’t have anything close to being finalized at this time. And so that’s a great opportunity for another group to come in and and be a part of a great campus and and project that we have up and running,” said Steve Young, senior vice president of asset management for Black Creek Group’s Western Region.
The December purchase of Lakewood Business Park, by MCA Realty of Orange County, California, saw that site sell for about $5 million more than when it was last purchased in 2013. The company said it plans site improvements along with plans to lease the remaining space.
Tyler Mattox, principal at MCA Realty, said in a recent news release announcing the purchase: “The Tacoma submarket is one of the tightest industrial submarkets in the region with sub 4 percent vacancy rates. The property’s close proximity to both the port and military base will contribute to long-term tenant demand and made it an attractive investment for MCA.”
CONSTRUCTION BOOM
According to the Lakewood city manager at the Jan. 4 council meeting, a record number of permits were issued in 2020, illustrating the city’s continued growth amid the larger pandemic-fueled slowdown experienced across the state.
“During a major economic downturn, Lakewood is certainly more than holding its own,” Caulfield told council members.
Black Creek began development of Lakewood Logistics Center II in September 2020 and estimates construction to be complete later this year.
Young told The News Tribune in a phone interview Tuesday that his Denver-based company, which purchased the site in July 2019, is “very bullish” on the Seattle-area market.
“We’ve got an existing 205,000-square-foot building that completed construction just a few months ago. And then we’ve got the building that Amazon has pre-leased, which is right around 470,000 square feet,” Young said. “Completion of construction will be plus or minus eight, nine months from now. And we’re thrilled to have been able to accommodate Amazon’s need for another facility in the area.
“We are firm believers that this is an emerging market that is going to draft off of all of the demand to be in South Seattle and the Kent Valley, and it’s just continued to gravitate further south into the Tacoma and Lakewood areas.”
Black Creek also owns the Tacoma Logistics Center, which is about a 1.1 million-square-foot project adjacent to the Port of Tacoma.
Lakewood officials offered their own economic review Jan. 4, with new permit valuation of new construction totaling $160 million for 2020.
“To put that in perspective, in 2018, when it was $125 million, that was a record year,” Caulfield said. “And again, to put that in perspective, typically on any given year since incorporation, the city would average $25-$35 million a year, maybe a good year was $50 million.”
Caulfield offered a breakdown of the top six categories: $68 million for new commercial construction, $23 million for commercial remodels, $22 million for commercial additions, $21 million for new single-family residences, $9 million for multifamily, and $6 million in residential remodels and repairs.
In the final category of remodels and repairs, he noted: “We attribute that to a bit of a contagious activity associated with our rental housing safety program with folks coming in and cleaning up their properties and making improvements.
“Once one neighbor does it, another neighbor does it and so on.”
He added, “You’re really beginning to see some significant improvements in our neighborhoods.”
Caulfield ended his presentation of the year in review noting 1,771 permits had been recorded, “the most ever issued in the city of Lakewood.”
Anderson, speaking to The News Tribune, cited improvements to the I-5-JBLM corridor as well as city infrastructure improvements, and Lakewood’s strength in its location for transport.
“We’re not going to go back to the retail we knew. There are malls in some places of the country that are being repurposed as fulfillment centers,” Anderson said.
“I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of strip mall development in the near midterm future. but we will see more fulfillment centers. We’re positioned on I-5 like DuPont that makes us attractive with easy on and off access for employees and for freight. So hopefully, I mean, thinking of it in broader terms we hopefully we can keep more people in Pierce County homes so they don’t have to stand in line for an hour to go north for a job and stand in line for an hour to get home from a job and have a higher quality of life and less stress.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 5:20 AM.
