A food delivery biz and IoT device maker sign on for new space near BWI

Commercial real estate is active around BWI this week, as a pair of companies are signing on for new space in the vicinity of Baltimore’s airport in Anne Arundel County.

Smart device manufacturer JACS Solutions signed a lease with St. John Properties to move into BWI Tech Park. It marks a move from Howard County to Anne Arundel County, as the company expects to move 30 employees from its current Columbia office into the 15,000-square-foot space on Nov. 1. The development is located at 809 Pinnacle Drive, near the corner of West Nursery Road and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

The company specializes in custom products for companies across a number of industries using Internet of Things, including touch displays, dongles, charging carts and tablets. It’ll use 80% of the space for administrative and engineering, and the rest for warehouse. Along with serving as its headquarters, the company plans to retrofit a space for manufacturing, though the majority of this production work is done in China.

“As a technology company, our employees thrive in environments that offer energy and foster creativity, and we were immediately attracted to the large windows that allow natural light to flow in, as well as the colorful and modernistic design of this space,” said Candy Zhang, treasurer of JACS Solutions, in a statement. “With the majority of our sales team located in other states, the location adjacent to BWI Airport offers extreme convenience when they visit our headquarters for training programs.”

Angelo Munafo of St. John Properties represented the landlord and Austin Eber of Lee & Associates Maryland represented the client in this transaction.

Lee & Associates Maryland also brokered a lease in Severn on behalf of Imperfect Foods, a food delivery service which provides produce and goods that otherwise would’ve gone to waste.

The company will move its East Coast distribution center into 110,000 square feet of space at 7481 Coca Cola Drive in Hanover. It’s an expansion for the company from a former site in Severn that was 76,000 square feet, where it moved in two years ago.

“The real estate search focused on refrigerated warehouses to support its logistics operations that covers much of the East Coast,” said Allan Riorda, the president of Lee & Associates who brokered the deal along with senior VP Ned Brady, in a statement. “It also was critical to secure a building located within close proximity to BWI Airport to expedite the receipt of fresh product that is critical to this use.”

The move comes as the San Francisco-based company has been growing in the pandemic, as ecommerce and food delivery are seeing increased demand. In April, the company said it planed to hire more than 125 operations associates and delivery drivers in the area.