Third-Party Logistics Firm Scoops Up 106K-SF Lease in L.A. County

Another third-party logistics (3PL) firm has inked a 10-year lease for a distribution facility in Los Angeles County, highlighting the demand from such firms as President Donald Trump’s tariffs loom. 

Lionext, a 3PL company tied to Chinese exporters, signed a 10-year, 106,110-square-foot lease at 11650 Burke Street in Santa Fe Springs. NAI Capital’s Ryan Campbell represented Lionext in the lease deal, which was valued at $22 million, while Lee & Associates’ Joel Hutak and Phillip DeRousse represented landlord Kekropia, a California stock corporation linked to local investor Larry Patsouras.

Patsouras’s firm paid about $377,500 for the land in 2009, records show. The building was developed in 2011. In addition to its industrial square footage, the property also contains about 7,000 square feet of office space.

Logistics firms, particularly those based in Asia, have been picking up space in U.S. coastal markets en masse lately due to the region’s hub status for industrial properties and its proximity to major ports, and as retailers and wholesalers brace for impact from Trump’s sweeping tariff policies. 3PL companies signed nearly 430 leases of 100,000 square feet or more in the U.S. last year — a 16 percent boost compared with 2023 — with 78 of those coming from Asia-based 3PLs, according to a February report from CBRE. 

The Inland Empire and L.A. County came in first and tied for fourth place, respectively, in terms of the amount of leases signed by 3PL companies last year, per CBRE. Aside from the sheer amount of industrial infrastructure in Southern California, proximity to the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach are major reasons for the demand. Activity in both ports accounts for some 31 percent of all international containerized shipments across the entire country. 

Howard Schwimmer, co-CEO of one of the region’s biggest warehouse owners in Rexford Industrial Realty, acknowledged during his firm’s most recent earnings call that Asia-based 3PL companies are pouncing on the unused properties in the nation’s logistics hubs, but the REIT is actually averse to doing business with such companies due to their oftentimes poor credit profiles.

“What you hear in the marketplace are some of these 3PLs coming to the market that have no credit,” Schwimmer said at the time. “And people, because they have vacancy and are in dire need [of] occupancy, are taking some of those. [But] those are highly risky and are not the type of uses that we’re going to ever put into the [Rexford] portfolio.”

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.