DOVER — Jack Lingo Asset Management has partnered with an industrial developer to build $30 million in warehouse space in Dover, addressing market demands for large floor space in the warehouse and distribution sector.
Right now, formal plans for 30 acres off Lafferty Lane have yet to be filed with Dover city officials. But tentative plans filed by Jack Lingo Asset Management and Matan Companies with the state Preliminary Land Use Services include at least one 281,230-square-foot warehouse on the land bordered by Route 1 and South Bay Road.
“It’s likely to be one or two warehouse spaces, up to 300,000 square feet in floor space. We’ve started to have some conversations with potential and likely users. It’s likely this will be developed on a spec basis, keeping those specific uses in mind,” Doug Motley, principal of Jack Lingo Asset Management, told the Delaware Business Times.
Plans filed with PLUS show 399 parking spaces, along with 88 tractor-trailer spaces and 87 trailer dropoff spaces near the rear of the site. A 12-inch water main and a 8-inch sewer main are at the front of the site, easing the opportunity for connection into Dover’s infrastructure.
The site, which is mostly farmland bordered by some woods, is zoned Manufacturing but its close proximity to the Dover Air Force Base also puts it in an Airport Overlay Zone. That may impose some regulations in terms of noise and use — as well as limiting building height to 60 feet — but Dover officials may work with a potential tenant down the line.
Jack Lingo Asset Management is the real estate investment arm of Jack Lingo Realtor Inc., a well-known name in Rehoboth Beach property investment and management. Over the last four decades, the firm has handled more than $5 billion in real estate sales and development, including Rehoboth Gateway, a 65,000-square-foot retail center, as well as apartment complexes The Oaks at Georgetown and Windward on The River in Milford, among others along the Eastern seaboard.
But while Jack Lingo Asset Management has the experience in land acquisition and the Delaware permitting process, it had little foundation in industrial and manufacturing construction. So it partnered with Matan Companies, a real estate firm based in the Washington D.C. suburbs. The firm’s portfolio currently has 7 million square feet of industrial, bio-life science and office assets.
The Matan family also has ties to Rehoboth Beach, and likely connected with the Lingo family during trips.
“This is a true, equal partnership,” Motley said. “They have more experience in understanding the dimensions and the value of this space, but we have more experience in the entitlement process. But the Matan Companies also have an in-house broker team that will help get this project more exposure in the market. Our collective capital puts us in a great position for this project.”
The warehouse also marks Jack Lingo Asset Management’s first Kent County investments. Market researchers identified the warehouse and distribution sector was underserved in the Dover area with little new constitution — and existing products are mostly dated.
At the same time, demand continues to skyrocket and Kent County leaders have noticed. A county economic study shows manufacturers and distributors are looking at central Delaware due to its strategic location to Route 1 and U.S Routes 13 and 113. In 2020 alone, Kent County landed at least four manufacturing companies with the largest win being Delmarva Corrugated Packaging.
The Lafferty Lane lot is 23 feet from an intersection at South Bay Road, which has direct access to Route 1, something that not many Kent County’s key prospects have. A recent draft of the Dover Air Cargo Freight Access Study highlights $17.7 million in proposed road infrastructure improvements in connecting roads to major roads and the Civil Air Terminal.
In particular, that study recommends expanding South Little Creek Road to Lafferty Lane to support heavy truck traffic, as well as widening the road to 12-foot lanes with 6-foot shoulders and improved turn lanes at key intersections.
