The big-box warehouses keep getting bigger as e-commerce groups, third-party logistics firms and others are on the hunt for the largest distribution and manufacturing facilities they can find or build.
CommercialEdge, part of Santa Barbara, California-based Yardi Systems Inc., recently analyzed the top warehouse markets and projects underway across the U.S. this year. It found Dallas has the most warehouse space set to deliver this year, with 38 million square feet expected to finish construction in 2022, followed closely by Phoenix, with 36.3 million square feet.
Texas is also the top spot for individual warehouse projects expected to deliver this year, with Tesla Inc.’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) nearly 4.3-million-square-foot project in Austin, Texas. A closely watched project, the factory opened several weeks ago, with CEO Elon Musk hosting a big factory party at the facility last week.
Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (NYSE: AMZN), unsurprisingly, occupies most of the spots on the top 10 — both in warehouse projects it owns outright, and ones it leases.
They include:
- A 3.8-million-square-foot warehouse being developed in Detroit by Dallas-based Hillwood Development Co. LLC and The Sterling Group LP out of Houston
- 2020 Northgate Commons, a 3.8-million-square-foot warehouse Amazon owns, in Suffolk, Virginia
- A third 3.8-million-square-foot center in North Andover, Massachusetts, that Hillwood is also developing
- The Cortana Mall redevelopment in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, led by Atlanta-based Seefried Industrial Properties Inc., will make way for a 3.5-million-square-foot center for Amazon
- Project Roxy, a 2.8-million-square-foot facility, in Arlington, Washington, that Irvine, California-based Panattoni Development Co. Inc. is developing
- Another 2.8-million-square-foot center in Canton, Mississippi, owned by San Antonio-based USAA Real Estate Co., will be leased to Amazon
- A 2.6-million-square-foot center in Pooler, Georgia — part of the Savannah metro that’s seeing a warehouse boom — also led by USAA Real Estate
Beyond Tesla, the remaining two non-Amazon warehouse projects that cracked the top 10 are the 2.8-million-square-foot plant for Ultium Cells LLC (a joint venture between General Motors Co. and LG Chem Ltd.) in Warren, Ohio, and Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart Inc.’s (NYSE: WMT) nearly 2.8-million-square-foot distribution center in Ridgeville, South Carolina.
Last year, the 10 largest industrial completions were all warehouses owned or leased by Amazon, according to CommercialEdge.
By Ashley Fahey – Editor, The National Observer: Real Estate Edition,
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