Walmart Pays $223M For Inland Empire Cold Storage Facility
Walmart purchased a cold storage facility in Riverside that it has leased since 2010, paying $233M.
The 1001 Columbia Ave. facility measures 507K SF with 120 trailer stalls, 98 dock doors and 22,500 SF of office space. The deal works out to about $460 per SF. The retail giant purchased the building from State Street Corp.
The deal is a sign that demand for temperature-controlled logistics facilities is still greater than the supply, JLL Managing Director Scott Coyle said in a release. JLL represented Walmart.
The U.S. cold storage market is resetting as record deliveries meet softer food inventories and uneasy consumer spending. Vacancy climbed to a 20‑year high to end 2025, despite 3.5M SF of positive net absorption last year, according to a Newmark report.
The construction pipeline has cooled to 5.9M SF, the least since 2020.
In the Inland Empire region, fundamentals reflect national demand cooling. The market totals 19.4M SF with no new projects underway, but rents remain elevated at $26 to $32 per SF on a triple-net basis, underscoring strong demand in the port-adjacent market.
Walmart's online grocery delivery business is rapidly expanding. The company announced on its first-quarter earnings call that its store-based deliveries have more than doubled over the past two years. Walmart can now reach 60% of the U.S. population in 30 minutes or less.
