Industrial: 1.8M sf start in Schertz, 5 big Texas deals

Need-to-know deals in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio this week

Core5's Timothy Gunter, Centerpoint Energy's David J. Lesar, Leon Capital's Fernando De Leon; ML Realty's Ryan Hesch (Core5 Industrial Partners, Centerpoint Energy, Leon Capital Group, ML Realty Partners)
Core5's Timothy Gunter, Centerpoint Energy's David J. Lesar, Leon Capital's Fernando De Leon; ML Realty's Ryan Hesch (Core5 Industrial Partners, Centerpoint Energy, Leon Capital Group, ML Realty Partners)

Co-warehousing has arrived. Industrial vacancies are low in parts of our state. And The Real Deal rounds up the big Texas deals you need to know. Here are six for #WarehouseWednesday.

➤ Atlanta-based Core5 Industrial Partners announced a project to build a four-building, 1.8 million-square-foot warehouse complex in the San Antonio suburb of Schertz, where a robust industrial market is starting to bloom.

The three-parcel, 381-acre facility at 4703 Scenic Lake Drive will sit at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Loop 1604. The first two buildings are set for groundbreaking in January and will clock in at 536,000 and 468,000 square feet, according to the plans. They’re expected to be for lease by the fourth quarter of 2023.

With industrial vacancy rates as low as 4 percent in San Antonio, the project is among many being built in response to record high demand for new construction in the city’s high-end corridors.

“More and more deals are being done with logistics-related and e-commerce companies,” said Liam Logan, director of investments for Core5.

“The deal sizes are getting bigger, so it made sense for us to build more bulk product in this market. A lot of land in Austin has been getting soaked up over the last couple of years, so San Antonio is a good alternative for the Austin market.”

➤ Also in Schertz, an industrial portfolio spanning over 153,000 square feet has been sold.

Dallas-based firm CBRE arranged the sale of the portfolio, which consists of two properties spanning 41,000 and 112,000 square feet. They were fully leased at the time of the sale, which was administered by Austin-based Marbella Interests. It was sold to an institutional buyer, but neither the name nor the financial details were disclosed.

CBRE’s Eliza Bachhuber, Randy Baird, Ryan Thornton, Jonathan Bryan and Nathan Wynne represented Marbella Interests in the deal. Wynne was recently appointed to lead CBRE’s Industrial and Logistics Capital team in Houston, which is also setting a pace in the market this year.

➤ Houston-based Centerpoint Energy has plans to build a 41,500-square-foot office and warehouse complex in the metro’s Sante Fe suburb as part of the relocation of its service center.

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The center was previously in Galveston and will be used for local Centerpoint service needs, according to the plans. Construction will cost about $25 million and is slated to begin by the end of this year with completion in late 2024.

➤ Dallas firm Leon Capital Group is planning to build a two-building, 180,000-square-foot spec warehouse complex in Forney, a Dallas suburb that’s proven to be a prime real estate destination in the DFW metro.

Other firms like Tellus are investing big money to build in the suburb.

The estimated costs for the two-building Gateway Logistics Center are around $18.4 million. Construction is slated to begin in mid-2023, with completion by mid-2024, according to the plans.

➤ An Illinois-based firm is investing in the DFW warehouse market with a three-building construction project in one of the metro’s most affluent suburbs.
ML Realty Partners is building a 229,400-square-foot spec warehouse complex in Coppell, a suburb of Dallas with a median household income of about $128,500.

The project will consist of three buildings, each fully sprinklered, tilt-up concrete exterior walls and steel roof structure, according to the plans. The estimated costs will run about $18.3 million.

➤ Austin-based investor Jeff Bailey, principal of the Bailey Company, is pooling money into a new self-storage facility in the Houston metro.

He is planning to build a three-story, 128,000-square-foot SurePoint Self Storage in the suburb of Conroe for an estimated cost of $9.5 million. SurePoint has three locations in the San Antonio metro area.

The self-storage market began to heat up in Texas earlier this year as companies sought to capitalize on the growing storage demand post-pandemic, with facilities in Dallas and Houston in particular thriving.

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