DSV Air and Sea Buys 87 Acres in Mesa for Regional HQ

DSV Air and Sea has paid $46 million to buy 87 acres of land in Mesa, Arizona, to build a regional headquarters and a 1.73 million-square-foot warehouse.

The Denmark-based global transportation and logistics firm purchased the land at the former GM Proving Grounds near Ellsworth and Pecos roads, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. The seller was Mesa BA Land, an affiliate of Pacific Proving, based in Phoenix.

The deal works out to $528,736 an acre.

Plans by DSV to build a 30,000-square-foot office building and two-story warehouse east of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport were recommended for approval in October by Mesa’s Planning and Zoning Board.

The development would serve as a regional corporate headquarters for DSV and be a “one-source solution” for warehousing, distribution, transportation and services across various industries, according to a company filing.

Brokers Nate Nathan and Courtney Buck of Scottsdale-based Nathan & Associates represented the seller. Marc Pierce, Brian Payne, Allen Lowe and Ryan Hingst of Lee & Associates represented the buyer.

“The intersection of Arizona State Route 24 and Ellsworth is becoming one of the most important destinations in Mesa,” Nathan, president of Nathan & Associates, told the Business Journal.

Last year, the Lee & Associates brokers helped DSV Air lease a 23,600-square-foot aircraft hangar at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport to accommodate its 747 air-cargo service, Pierce told the newspaper. The brokers later helped DSV lease a 190,500-square-foot logistics facility in Phoenix.

Andrew Cohn, principal of Pacific Proving and Mesa BA Land, and partner Bill Levine, bought 1,805 acres of the former GM Proving Grounds in 2005 for an undisclosed price. They still own 800 acres.

They plan to set aside 200 acres for what Cohn calls a “dense, quality, lifestyle environment containing residential, retail, corporate campus contained in a walkable environment.”

“We’ll develop it in concert with another developer and first-class hotel operator,” Cohn told the Business Journal. “Multifamily will be part of that project.

“We are hoping to break ground within the next 24 months.”

He said it’s too soon to name the hotel operator, or size up the number of apartments. He said it would look like “a project that Mesa has never seen before,” along the lines of Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter, two retail developments in north Scottsdale.

— Dana Bartholomew