Lineage Logistics has sold a 226,000-square-foot cold storage facility in Santa Maria, California, for US$60 million, according to Yardi Matrix. The property was acquired by Arctic Cold, supported by a US$30 million loan from UMB Bank.
Following the transaction, Arctic Cold's footprint in California has expanded to nearly 1.3 million square feet. Lineage developed the facility in 2014. While the timing of Arctic Cold's initial use of the site is not specified, the company now operates the building as its second facility in Santa Maria and its third location in the state.
The Class A property occupies about 10 acres at 1349 W. La Brea Ave., near the local airport. The site has access to California State Route 135 and U.S. Route 101, providing connectivity across the Central Coast, the Bay Area, and Southern California.
© Lineage Logistics
The facility includes 132,000 square feet of frozen storage space and 65,000 square feet allocated to on-site food processing. It is equipped with eight blast-freeze cells with a combined capacity of up to 1 million pounds per day. Additional features include four grade-level doors, 14 dock-high doors, rail access, in-house transportation services, and around 30,000 pallet positions.
Cold storage market context
According to Food Logistics, online grocery shopping is expected to grow at a rate five times higher than the projected 1.7 per cent annual growth for in-store spending by 2029. Online channels are forecast to account for 17 per cent of total grocery sales and more than half of the sector's dollar volume growth over the next three years, supporting demand for cold storage capacity.
Newmark reports that, as of the first half of 2025, the U.S. cold storage market recorded its highest vacancy rate in the past two decades. This trend is mainly linked to new supply entering the market that has not yet been absorbed. The two largest operators, Lineage and Americold, together account for nearly 4 billion cubic feet of capacity.
California remains the largest cold storage market in the U.S., with inventory totaling about 20.5 million square feet, concentrated primarily in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. Between 2019 and 2024, developers completed 934,739 square feet of cold storage space in Los Angeles, with the largest project being Arctic Cold's facility in Oxnard, California.
Source: Commercial Property Executive
