A North Carolina-based developer has paid $6.2 million for nearly 15 acres in Hanover County, marking its entry into the Richmond market with plans for a pair of speculative warehouses totaling 231,120 square feet. Trinity Capital Advisors closed on the Northlake Business Park property in September, according to county property records, with construction tentatively set to begin in summer 2027 and delivery expected by the third quarter of 2028.
The purchase, first reported by Richmond BizSense, covers a site previously owned by Lutron Electronics, a lighting and window shading control systems company with a manufacturing facility near the property, which bought the tract on the south line of Northlake Park Drive in 2023. Hanover County approved a conditional use permit for Trinity's project in August, per the county planning portal, while Lutron still held the land. The site, zoned for light industrial use and sitting adjacent to Camping World RV Parts & Accessories, was assessed by the county at roughly $1.76 million.
Trinity's plan calls for two rear-load industrial buildings, with the first spanning roughly 123,000 square feet and the second about 108,000 square feet — figures the company's own release puts more precisely at 123,133 and 107,987 square feet. Mortenson, a Minneapolis-headquartered firm, will serve as general contractor. Midlothian-based Townes Site Engineering is handling civil engineering, and Henrico-based Range Commercial Partners has been retained to lead leasing.
A Partner's Pitch for Hanover
Jordan Quinn, a partner at Trinity Capital Advisors, said the buildings are designed to be very modern by speculative industrial standards, with multiple storefronts suited to companies of different sizes. He said the design and functionality could draw a wide range of tenants, and the company expects the space to accommodate businesses across different industries.
Quinn said Trinity pursued a Hanover project because the county represents one of Richmond's largest industrial submarkets, citing connectivity to labor, Interstate 95, established companies and routes to Richmond and the Port of Virginia as reasons for choosing the area. The company, which primarily works in the Southeast, is also exploring other areas to expand its holdings in Hanover and the greater Richmond region, according to Quinn. Final project costs remain unclear, he said.
Tight Market Fuels the Bet
Trinity is wading into an industrial market with little slack. Northlake's roughly 6.8 million square feet of space is currently 99% leased, according to the company's own release. Figures on the broader Richmond market vary by source: Trinity Capital Advisors puts overall vacancy at approximately 3.9%, a level it says has held at or below 5% since 2018, while CBRE reported vacancy at 5.2% in the third quarter of 2026, down 20 basis points from the prior quarter.
CBRE also tracked 668,000 square feet of net absorption and 2.6 million square feet of leasing activity in the Richmond market during that same quarter, up from 1.0 million square feet a year earlier. The firm counted 12.2 million square feet under construction across 25 properties, with average asking rent climbing to $9.02 per square foot, up 11.6% year over year. Trinity's release separately noted that 2025 leasing activity reached 3.7 million square feet, leaving less than 12 months of available supply at that pace, a dynamic that helps explain the appetite for new speculative space like Northlake.
A Second Richmond-Area Project in the Works
Northlake isn't Trinity's only local bet. An affiliate of the company is also planning a three-building project called Trinity Logistics Center on 60 acres at West Creek Business Park in Goochland County, with buildings ranging from 104,000 to 236,000 square feet for a total of 554,000 square feet. Goochland planning commissioners endorsed the project's master plan this year, a process that required no county supervisors' approval, and the plan of development is now under county review. The four parcels making up the site are owned by West Creek Associates, which is tied to West Creek owners the Pruitt Cos. and Riverstone Group; Trinity has not yet purchased the land, and Quinn estimated the sale would finalize in November.
Quinn said West Creek construction is targeted to begin shortly after closing, with buildout completed in the third or fourth quarter of 2027. He described West Creek as offering potential regional distribution alongside Northlake, saying the larger West Creek buildings may lean more toward regional distributors and companies. Elsewhere in Hanover, Delta Citation has broken ground on a roughly 43,000-square-foot warehouse at Hanover Air Park in Ashland that is already 100% pre-leased to a single user, according to a report from GRP VA, which noted the park's access off Interstate 95 to distribution routes serving Richmond, Northern Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic.
