Ed Smith, CCIM

I am a Broker Associate with Lee & Associates in Ontario, California. I started in this business in 1986 at Daum Commercial, spent sixteen years at Cushman & Wakefield, and have been at Lee since 2005. The work has been industrial and distribution throughout, for companies along the corridor from the ports to the Inland Empire. Most of it now is sales, leasing and land across San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

Most of what I do sits on one side of a warehouse deal or the other. Owners and institutional investors bringing product to market. Occupiers deciding whether to renew, expand, or move. Landowners working out what a site is actually worth once the entitlement path is priced in.

Why I write about lease clauses

I joined the AIR Commercial Real Estate Association in 1986 and served as its President in 2004. I have chaired its Forms Committee, its Education Committee, and its Ethics and Arbitration Committee.

The AIR forms are the documents most industrial leases in Southern California are written on. Chairing the committee that maintains them means years spent on one question: what a clause actually does when the parties end up disagreeing about it. That is the same question this publication asks every week.

Why this publication exists

Industrial tenants in this market are absorbing a stack of costs that did not exist a few years ago. Warehouse siting rules under AB 98 and SB 415. WAIRE obligations under South Coast AQMD Rule 2305. A tariff regime that has been rewritten twice in a year. Energy costs moving with a tightening cap-and-invest program.

Almost nobody publishes what those things cost per square foot. Brokerage research covers vacancy and rents; law firms cover statutes. The gap in between is where occupancy decisions actually get made, so that is what I write about, one item a week, with the arithmetic shown.

Selected assignments

• Norman International Company. 434,898 SF distribution building sale.
• Hillwood Investment Properties. 414,020 SF distribution building sale.
• Beaulieu of America. 249,572 SF sale-leaseback.
• Unified Aircraft. 119,900 SF manufacturing building sale.
• RedRock Development. 19.70 acres, land assemblage and sale.
• ICO Development. 20,654 SF office build-to-suit on a 20-year lease to the DMV.

Credentials

CCIM — Certified Commercial Investment Member, the commercial real estate industry's designation for financial and market analysis.
California DRE License #00874955, held continuously.
AIR Commercial Real Estate Association — member since 1986, President 2004.

Get in touch

If you are working through a renewal, a relocation, a disposition or a land play anywhere from the ports to the Inland Empire, I am glad to talk it through, whether or not there is a deal in it.