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Transactions - MAY 10, 2017

Large development projects under way in Texas

by Andrea Waitrovich

American Airlines is developing a new 1.8-million-square-foot corporate headquarters campus on a nearly 300-acre site in Forth Worth.

Construction commenced on the more than $350 million, five-building complex. It is slated for completion by summer 2019. The project is being developed by Crescent Real Estate Holdings.

Upon completion of the project, American Airlines plans to relocate 7,300 employees from four locations throughout North Texas to the campus. The new site will be named after former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall.

It will join a 300-acre campus that already includes many of American’s training and operations facilities, including its flight academy, integrated operations center, reservations center, and training and conference center.

In addition, Crow Holdings Capital-Real Estate will break ground this month on I-35 Logistics Crossing, a two-building, 1.2 million-square-foot industrial park located in the south Dallas suburb of Lancaster.

The property, which is slated for an early 2018 delivery, will feature 36-foot clear heights, 185-foot truck courts and trailer storage.

Hines is also starting a more than 1 million-square-foot warehouse project nearby.

Southern Dallas County is one of the fastest-growing industrial building markets in the country. Approximately 4 million square feet of warehouse projects are under construction in the area along Interstates 20 and 45.

With almost 16 million square feet of construction, Dallas is second nationally only to Chicago in total warehouse building, according to a first-quarter report from Cushman & Wakefield.

Overall, Texas commercial property construction expenditures topped $18.5 billion last year. And development supported 310,994 Texas jobs, according to a report by the NAIOP Research Foundation.

Texas ranked first in the country in retail and entertainment spending, with $4.1 billion in construction last year. It ranked second for office development ($8.4 billion) and warehouse construction ($3 billion).

Nationwide, the commercial development and construction industry contributed $861 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product last year. And the industry supported 6.25 million jobs, the new report said.

Construction spending across the country has gone up almost 50 percent since 2011. And Texas has been one of the biggest contributors.

New York State, with $24.8 billion in direct commercial real estate spending, topped Texas in 2016, according to the NAIOP estimates.

California was third with $14.3 billion in spending in the commercial development and construction sector.

Nationwide, 410 million square feet of office, retail, warehouse and industrial space was built in 2016, with capacity to house more than 1 million new workers, according to the NAIOP study.

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