Construction of an $8 million industrial spec building development in the Pender Commerce Park is slated for completion this month.

The more than 127,000-square-foot building sitting on lot 2 of the Pender Commerce Park is expected to be done in mid-October, said Chris Ramm, managing partner at Pender Commerce Park Partners 1 LLC, the group formed to develop the space and lease the property.

Ramm said Monday that the partnership is looking forward to starting the leasing phase for the project,  part of the county-owned industrial park off U.S. 421.

Others involved in the project include Paul Loukas and Will Leonard of Cape Fear Commercial, the listing agents for the spec building, and Wilmington Business Development (WBD), an economic development organization serving New Hanover and Pender counties that is helping to market the building.

The concrete building has been constructed with 32-foot ceilings, 26 dock doors and two large drive-in doors on either side of the building. There are more than 120 parking spaces in development for the site, he added. The building was designed to to be flexible and hold one to three tenants.

There is some final tasks taking place on the site in the next couple of weeks, including landscaping and painting, Ramm said.

Multiple interested parties have become interested in the site, he added.

"We're hoping that some of these detailed conversations we're having with a few possible tenants will pan out between now and the end of the year," Ramm said. "We're still really early in the process ... I'm super pleased where we are and with the interest we have in the project."

The building is the "first current, modern industrial spec building of this size and caliber in the Wilmington market in a long time," he said.

"We have a fantastic development team that we have been working with and everybody has done their job and done their job well. Couldn't be more pleased with the entire team, especially with all the rain and everything else. It could have set us way off track," Ramm said. 

The Pender Commerce Park has become one of the biggest industrial parks in the state, according to WBD.

With the addition of this new spec building and the planned development of the North American headquarters of India-based industrial hose manufacturer Polyhose Inc., the Pender Commerce Park is slated to become home to more than 600 jobs, $100 million in capital investment and 600,000 square feet of industrial space, according to WBD.

“We are very excited about the progress Chris and his team have made at the Pender Commerce Park. This best-in-class industrial asset not only helps us in our recruitment efforts but also could prove invaluable to companies in Greater Wilmington looking to expand into additional space," WBD CEO Scott Satterfield said in an email.

There are four other firms in Pender Commerce Park: FedEx Freight, Coastal Beverage Co., Acme Smoked Fish and Empire Distributors.

“This project and other surrounding activity has helped generate a substantial amount of interest in the region," Satterfield said. "Having industrial building options helps us to diversify submittals for state projects and provides opportunities for employers we are proactively recruiting in the logistics/distribution as well as light manufacturing sectors. We are incredibly thankful to the leadership of Pender County and look forward to the continued growth and success of developers like Chris Ramm in the region.”