Velocis, Ironwood, MBK Plan Spec Industrial Project Near Austin

The development boom in the northeast Austin suburbs is about to be pushed into overdrive with a huge industrial project on the horizon.

A joint venture of Dallas-based Velocis, Ironwood Realty Partners and California-based MBK Industrial Properties will start construction later this month on a project that will deliver more than 1 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space to Hutto, the Austin Business Journal reported.

The development, at the intersection of State Highway 130 and West U.S. 79, is near Samsung’s $17 billion semiconductor factory and Hutto’s megasite that’s set to become a massive data center campus. It’s also 20 miles north of Tesla’s gigafactory in eastern Travis County.

The development will unfold in two phases. The first will feature three speculative industrial buildings totaling 660,000 square feet. The second phase will mirror the first, with three buildings totaling about 667,000 square feet.

“There is a huge demand for high-quality real estate to serve these tech firms and their suppliers and partners. This project is ideally located to capitalize on this demand,” Velocis principal Paul Smith told the outlet.

The project is part of a broader trend of industrial development in the region. Sansone Group and Link Logistics, for example, are planning huge industrial facilities near Tesla’s gigafactory, both of which will span more than 1 million square feet.

Missouri-based Sansone Group was drawn to the Austin area due to its population growth and sustained demand in the industrial sector, said principal Nick Sansone.

Another large-scale industrial project is underway in Hutto. New Mexico-based Titan Development is constructing more than 2 million square feet of tech-focused warehouse space at the megasite.

Ironwood previously developed 130 Crossing in Pflugerville, a massive industrial campus where Silicon Valley-based Applied Materials is a major tenant.

—Quinn Donoghue