The public agency acquired the property from Rexford Industrial at $425 per square foot, marking one of the largest owner-user transactions in Orange County this quarter.
The Orange County Sanitation District has acquired a 62,838-square-foot industrial building at 18250 Euclid Street in Fountain Valley for $26.7 million, or approximately $425 per square foot, according to Colliers’ Q1 2026 Orange County Industrial Market Report.
Rexford Industrial, the Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust focused exclusively on Southern California industrial properties, sold the asset. The transaction represents one of the quarter’s most significant industrial sales in Orange County by dollar volume, underscoring ongoing demand from owner-users and public agencies willing to pay a premium for well-located industrial space.
The sale price of $425 per square foot ranks among the higher per-square-foot figures recorded in the Fountain Valley submarket, where average direct asking rents stood at $1.35 per square foot on a triple-net basis in Q1 2026, according to the Colliers report. The transaction reflects the continued scarcity of available industrial product in the Airport submarket, which posted a vacancy rate of just 4.5 percent in the first quarter, up only modestly from 4.1 percent in the prior quarter.
The Orange County Sanitation District, which operates wastewater collection and treatment facilities serving approximately 2.6 million residents in central and northern Orange County, maintains its primary headquarters at 18480 Bandilier Circle in Fountain Valley. The Euclid Street acquisition positions the agency to expand its operational footprint near its existing campus.
Rexford Industrial, meanwhile, has been selectively disposing of assets as part of a broader capital recycling strategy. The REIT, which controls one of the largest portfolios of industrial properties in Southern California, has executed a series of dispositions in recent quarters while continuing to invest in value-add and repositioning opportunities across infill markets.
The Fountain Valley industrial market sits within the broader Airport submarket, which encompasses Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Irvine, Newport Beach, Santa Ana, and Tustin. In Q1 2026, the Airport submarket recorded 283,215 square feet of positive net absorption, the strongest performance among the county’s four major submarkets, according to Colliers. The submarket’s total inventory stands at approximately 61.9 million square feet.
Countywide, Orange County’s industrial vacancy rate edged up 10 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 5.5 percent and now sits 125 basis points above year-ago levels, according to the Colliers report. Despite the gradual rise in vacancy from a historic low of 0.9 percent set in Q4 2022, the market remains tight by historical standards, and owner-user demand continues to support pricing. Gross activity across the county totaled 3,464,827 square feet in Q1, 19 percent above the 10-year quarterly average of 2.9 million square feet.
Average asking rents across Orange County declined for the eleventh consecutive quarter, falling $0.03 quarter-over-quarter to $1.46 per square foot triple-net, a 6.6 percent decline from a year ago, according to Colliers. Despite the pullback, rents remain approximately 55 percent above pre-pandemic levels, illustrating the structural repricing that has reshaped the industrial landscape since 2020.
The acquisition signals that public agencies remain active participants in the Orange County industrial market, competing alongside institutional investors and private operators for a limited supply of functional, well-located buildings in one of Southern California’s most constrained industrial corridors.
