SanMar takes GM building

SanMar Corp., a wholesale distributor of apparel, last week nailed down a lease-purchase agreement on the 490,500-square-foot building to be vacated by the General Motors parts organization in east Sparks.

General Motors is moving to a new distribution center in Stead.

SanMar's deal for the building at 555 Vista Blvd.

is the biggest deal for industrial space in the region this year.

In fact, it accounts for nearly a quarter of the industrial space that was absorbed in the area during the exceptionally busy first quarter of 2004.

SanMar, which is based at Preston, Wash., will move this autumn from a 420,000-square-foot distribution center at Patrick along Interstate 80 east of Sparks.

Jordan Lott, the company's director of logistics, said SanMar needs more space and wanted to be closer to the metropolitan area and its labor supply.

Another key factor, he said, was SanMar's desire to be close to the UPS shipping facilities in Sparks.

The new location is next door to UPS.

SanMar employs about 180 people in northern Nevada, and Lott said the number continues to grow.

The Vista Boulevard building is owned by First Industrial Realty Trust of Chicago.

Commercial Properties of Nevada handled marketing of the building after General Motors announced its plans to move to Stead.

Deborah Sasz-Vonarx, a broker with Commercial Properties of Nevada, said the 18-month effort to find a new tenant for the building couldn't pick up steam until General Motors was close to finishing its move.

That's now scheduled for October.

Although the building was constructed in 1980, Sasz-Vonarx said it met many modern construction standards.

Clear heights inside the warehouse, for instance, are 30 feet.

Along with 26 dock doors, the facility includes 600 feet of rail spur inside the building.

The property also drew interest because it's outside the Truckee River's floodplain.

The SanMar deal doesn't cover two vacant pieces of property next to the old GM plant.

Negotiations on those parcels one 8.5 acres, the other 5.9 acres are under way, said Sue Smith, a broker with Commercial Properties of Nevada.

Paul Perkins, senior vice president in the industrial properties group of Colliers International, represented SanMar.

He said SanMar had been looking for a new site in northern Nevada off and on for a couple of years.

The deal for the GM building, Perkins said, was complex because of the need to work around the automaker's move as well as the need to subdivide the property to break out the two vacant parcels.

Along with its move to the larger facility at Sparks, SanMar this year plans to open new distribution centers at Jacksonville, Fla., and in the Dallas area.

With the addition of the two new locations each of which will be about 200,000 square feet SanMar will have a total of six U.S.

distribution centers totaling mroe than 1.65 million square feet.

The allow SanMar to reach 61 percent of the U.S.

population with overnight delivery.

SanMar sells apparel such as woven shirts, caps and jackets to screenprinters, embroiderers and distributors of promotional products.

Much of its business is targeted toward suppliers of corporate- identity clothing.

The company got its start in 1971 as a college project undertaken by Marty Lott at the family home near Seattle.

SanMar initially was an importexport business that included T-shirts.

Its name first was used by Marty Lott's father for a construction company he launched in 1963, and it's derived from his two children Sandra and Marty.

The son decided to use it for his college project, and it stuck.

The company opened its first northern Nevada distribution facility in Sparks in 1995.

At the time, the company leased 121,000 square feet for a warehouse, showroom and pickup center.