Another large industrial park is headed to Georgetown.
Stonemont Financial Group LLC – an Atlanta-based private real estate firm that specializes in industrial development, acquisitions and net lease investments – announced March 24 it closed a land sale that clears the way for a 230,000-square-foot facility off I-35 on Westinghouse Road.
Located on an 18-acre site, the Westinghouse35 project will contain 32-foot clear heights, 58 dock doors, up to 345 auto parking stalls and 68 full-size trailer parking stalls. It is slated to be completed in the first half of 2023.
Representatives from the company said it marks their first project in Central Texas and will help fill the void for class A industrial space for e-commerce and third-party logistics providers that have recently opened or expanded in Austin.
The move continues to establish Georgetown – a city of 67,176 residents in 2020, according to the U.S. Census – as an industrial hub north of Austin. It also comes at a time when demand for industrial space in the region is at some of the highest-levels ever recorded.
Research from NAI Partners found that the demand for local industrial space has tightened to a 4% vacancy rate, as of the fourth quarter of 2021, which is the second-lowest vacancy rate ever recorded. That’s down from 4.8% the previous quarter and from 7.1% at the same point the previous year.
The Georgetown/Round Rock submarket had a 6.8% vacancy rate and an average asking price for rent of $0.73 per month per square foot in Q4 of 2021, according to NAI Partners. That average rent price is lower than the $0.98 per month per foot average throughout the entire Austin metro.
Additional large industrial projects are underway right near the Stonemont project. Jackson-Shaw Co. is building a 224-acre development known as CrossPoint Business District that will house Onx Homes, a vertically integrated modular home builder. Titan Development Ltd. is building both the 114-acre Gateway35 and the 146-acre NorthPark35 Industrial Park, and already has attracted electric vehicle supplier CelLink Corp. and automotive parts retailer Texas Speed & Performance Ltd.
Link Logistics Real Estate LLC, which was established in 2019 by Blackstone Inc., is behind a $38 million, 631,000-square-foot industrial warehouse development dubbed Settlers Grove, although few details are known about the project.
Stonemont is hoping to meet that demand. The company has already established a presence in the Dallas area with 1.5 million square feet of distribution centers and speculative development buildings under management or construction. The company also opened a Dallas office.
