Sturtevant-based Diversey Inc. recently leased 150,000 square feet of industrial space at 7505 Durand Ave. (Highway 11), Mt. Pleasant.
The building is owned by investors from Chicago and Florida, who were represented by Scott Revolinski and Paul McBride of RFP Commercial in brokering the deal.
Diversey plans to use the space for additional inventory storage, McBride said.
“They are building up their inventory,” he said. “They needed extra room.”
Diversey is a manufacturer of commercial cleaning, hygiene, pest control, and food sanitation products for retailers, building service contractors, hospitality providers, and foodservice operators. Formerly known as JohnsonDiversey, the company split off from Racine-based S.C. Johnson & Son in 1999. Diversey is the second largest global industrial and institutional cleaning products company, according to Hoovers.
Demand for industrial space is picking up in the Racine area, McBride said.
“Racine’s hot,” he said. “There is just not a lot of (available) product in the Racine market. I think there’s demand in that area.”
Statistics support McBride’s assessment of the Racine County industrial market. Racine County’s industrial space vacancy rate fell from 6.7 percent at the end of 2009 to 4.7 percent at the end of 2010, according to The Dickman Company Inc. That is lower than the overall southeastern Wisconsin industrial space vacancy rate of 8.6 percent. Racine County’s industrial real estate market had positive net absorption of 790,960 square feet of space in 2010, according to The Dickman Company.
