Lucid Motors leases space, expands in the East Valley

Lucid Group Inc. (Nasdaq: LCID) has signed a lease for more than 116,000 square feet of industrial space in Tempe.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Phil Haenel, Mike Haenel and Andy Markham represented the landlord, TA Realty, as the three looked to backfill the entire space for one tenant at 525 W. 21st St. Phil Haenel confirmed that a lease was signed in March for Lucid Motors and that John Asher of AT Real Estate Services represented Lucid in the deal.

Asher could not be immediately reached for comment on the deal.

Plans for what Lucid Motors will do with the space weren’t immediately available. The Newark, California-based electric vehicle maker didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Tempe space was previously occupied by Spencer’s TV & Appliance. Just last year, Phil and Mike Haenel and Markham brokered the sale of 525 W. 21st St. from Spencer’s TV & Appliance to Boston-based TA Realty in a $17.9 million deal. The trio was retained as listing brokers for property. As Spencer’s TV & Appliance moved out, Lucid’s lease began, Haenel said.

“The Phoenix metro area saw phenomenal occupier growth in 2020 and 2021 that has carried into 2022, according to Cushman & Wakefield research. “Tempe alone reported nearly 725,000 square feet of industrial growth in Q1 2022. The robust levels of demand, which have come from out-of-state and in-state companies, have fueled the need for greater industrial supply, particularly for well-located class A products,” Haenel said in a statement.

Lucid Motors is on a growing spree.

The news of Lucid securing the Tempe location comes as it purchased about 120 acres in May near its existing electric vehicle factory in Casa Grande.

Last September, Lucid opened AMP-1, its 1 million-square-foot facility, where it started producing its first batch of vehicles in Pinal County. Lucid also started construction on a new factory just south of the existing plant, which is expected to add 2.85 million square feet to the company’s footprint.

In addition to AMP-1 — and now 525 W. 21st St — Lucid is leasing space at 2592 E. Hanna Rd in suites 115 and 120 in Casa Grande for LPM-1 manufacturing facility. It also leasing space in Tempe at 1115 W. Alameda Drive — located just over a mile from its new 116,000-square-foot space — for logistics use, according to a Form S-1 the company filed last August to the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Those two leases run through 2025 and 2026, respectively, and Lucid has options to renew those leases for another 10 years for each property.

Lucid received its first building permit for its Tempe logistics facility in April 2020 for interior demolition to start tenant improvements. In total, it has been issued 10 permits from the city of Tempe, with the most recent one issued in December 2021.

After Lucid became a publicly traded company last year, it had disclosed plans to more than triple the footprint of its Arizona factory. The company has room to eventually expand to 5.1 million square feet.

As of February, Lucid said it employs 2,000 people in Arizona, planning to hire 1,000 more by the end of the year, according to previous Business Journal reporting.