Fort Worth's 3M SF Construction Boom

AllianceTexas inked 5M SF in leases last year and has almost 3M SF of industrial space under construction. (The machines are building their own houses.) Its one part of Fort Worth’s amazing growth and another reason we’re hosting the fifth annual Bisnow Fort Worth State of the Market event on Thursday at the Omni. (You can get tickets here.)

Hillwood SVP Bill Burton (right, with General T. Michael Moseley, Ret. USAF) tells us there are two build-to-suits projects for LG Electronics and Heritage Bag Co (accounting for about 60% of that construction), and two spec projects (the other 40%) with a July completion. The spec projects were needed to add additional inventory. Industrial and aviation have been the bread and butter of AllianceTexas, Bill says, but as the rooftops have grown north, there has been significant demand for office and retail, as well. (It's not that they don't love you, industrial and aviation, they just want to play with other industries every once and awhile.) The diverse demographics provide a growing labor base that supports increasing office and retail jobs as well as the continued growth in warehouse and logistics, he says.

The last census showed that Fort Worth was the fastest-growing city with a population over 500,000 in the US, and half of that growth was in the I-35W north corridor, Bill tells us. AllianceTexas has 155k SF of office spec space under construction in addition to the new 357k SF FAA Southwest regional HQ (developed by Crow on land purchased from Hillwood). Since early ’08, the 900-acre Alliance Town Center has added four hospitals, 1M SF of retail, three multifamily projects (with a fourth breaking ground soon), and two office buildings. Bill tells us he's enjoying a good book right now called Unbroken.