Amazon Forks Over $79 Million for Industrial Flex Building in Pasadena, Calif.

Amazon has made a significant deal in Pasadena commercial real estate, paying $79 million for an industrial property. This transaction underscores the tech giant’s growing footprint in southern California as the sale more than doubled the building’s value in just four years. The seller — El Segundo, Calif.-based Alvarez & Marsal Capital Real Estate — achieved a massive gain of around 139% from the sale after purchasing the property from Graymark Capital in early 2021 for only $33 million, according to property records. At approximately $469 per square foot, the price represents a substantial premium for flex industrial space.

The newly acquired, two-story building spans approximately 168,000 square feet and is characterized as a creative office and industrial hybrid facility. It’s situated along the 210 Freeway corridor at 2964 Bradley St. (with an alternate address of 3100 New York Drive), placing it a short drive from Caltech and numerous research and development facilities. This area is increasingly attractive to data infrastructure and technology companies.

Historically, the property has catered to defense and aerospace clients, and business directory records indicate that multinational defense contractor Thales previously operated there. Whether any legacy tenants remain could not be independently confirmed.

Amazon’s willingness to pay a premium for this urban infill industrial space mirrors a broader industry pattern in which tech firms prioritize proximity to specialized talent and research institutions, as opposed to the cost savings of remote suburban locations, thereby aligning with a corporate push into cloud infrastructure and data center development.

This acquisition adds to Amazon’s existing presence in Pasadena, which already includes the AWS Center for Quantum Computing. Opened in 2021 and built in partnership with Caltech on the university’s campus, that 21,000-square-foot research facility houses teams dedicated to developing fault-tolerant quantum computers. Furthermore, this local purchase comes amid massive national investments, including Amazon’s recent plans to invest roughly $15 billion in new data center facilities across northern Indiana and a commitment of up to $50 billion for artificial intelligence infrastructure serving federal government agencies, as reported by Data Center Dynamics.