Canvasback Capital Project Rises In Leland Innovation Park

The first of three small-bay buildings is under construction in Leland Innovation Park.

Canvasback Capital, a Birmingham, Alabama-based real estate investment and development firm, purchased 31 acres in the Leland Innovation Park for the project last fall in a $1.95 million deal. Now, the first and, at 75,000 square feet, the largest planned building is under construction and expected to be completed by the end of September, said Canvasback Capital partner Trey Echols.

Canvasback Capital, led by Echols and business partner David Nelson, sees the project as catering to population and business growth in Brunswick County and in Leland.

Echols said he expects the building’s small bay or flex spaces to be occupied by a mix of users, including companies specializing in trades, such as plumbing or HVAC, other small businesses needing space to warehouse or ship their products, and recreation users looking to establish a gym or other indoor sports facility.

“Our design really is a concrete box, and then we put our columns 50 feet in width,” Echols said.

Echols and Nelson landed on the 5,000-square-foot unit size after observing tenant behavior in a similar small-bay project they previously developed. There, they noticed that most users opted to occupy two of the project’s 2,500-square-foot units.

“As we've just watched this market reemerge, this small bay market, the 5,000-foot user is what we think is right for our investment thesis,” Echols said.

The group’s first building in Leland Innovation Park could accommodate up to 15 5,000-square-foot small bay spaces, but since some users are likely to occupy more than 5,000 square feet, the number of tenants could be fewer than 15, according to Will Leonard, a senior vice president with Cape Fear Commercial. Leonard and Keith Austin, also a senior vice president with Cape Fear Commercial, are marketing leases for the first building.

They’ve started preleasing efforts for the space. So far, no leases have been signed, but that could be due to the limited nature of preleasing in Wilmington’s industrial market, Leonard said.

“The activity's picked up decently in the last few weeks,” he said, “but I think once the final paint scheme gets on this thing and the landscaping starts to go in and the parking lot starts to look good, the phone will start ringing a whole lot.”

Echols said Canvasback Capital has started the preconstruction process for the project’s second building, and the developers expect to break ground on the proposed 67,000-square-foot building once the first is 50% leased.

There are also plans for a third 33,200-square-foot building on the site, which would be part of the project’s second phase, Echols said.

“What we plan on doing is getting (the first two) buildings fully stabilized,” he said, “and then when we go to refinance, we'll use proceeds to build the third.”

Canvasback Capital Project Rises In Leland Innovation Park

Comments