CenterPoint Properties’ Texas expansion fulfilling growing demand for logistically advantaged space

Advancing corporate strategies honed over nearly four decades, CenterPoint Properties is assertively expanding its Texas portfolio of logistically advantaged industrial real estate to provide warehouse and distribution solutions that reduce transportation costs while enhancing supply chain efficiencies.

Oakbrook, Illinois-headquartered CenterPoint has invested $500 million to date in the Houston area alone, encompassing 37 properties and more than 6.3 million square feet of warehouse space. And the company’s presence in the business-friendly Lone Star State is now spreading further to embrace prime locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin-San Antonio markets.

“Texas is experiencing nation-leading growth in population and economic strength,” Rives Nolen, CenterPoint’s Houston-based senior vice president of investments, told AJOT. “CenterPoint is serving this burgeoning marketplace by acquiring premium industrial properties that offer highly efficient access to port, rail and highway transportation.”

Multimodal access offered

CenterPoint’s recently acquired 601,261-square-foot building on 31 acres at 3507 Pasadena Freeway in Pasadena, Texas, wholly embodies these enviable multimodal access characteristics.

The Pasadena property is a dozen miles from Port Houston’s Barbours Cut Container Terminal and 16 miles from its Bayport Container Terminal. Port Houston is the nation’s No. 1 foreign tonnage port and by far the busiest Gulf containerport, handling nearly 70 percent of the entire region’s containerized cargo traffic. Construction has just begun to widen and deepen the 52-mile-long Houston Ship Channel, while robust growth in cargo activity across Port Houston docks continues.

CenterPoint’s Class A building at 3507 Pasadena Freeway, with a clear-height of 32 feet, has six rail spurs, offering access via the Port Terminal Railroad Association to three Class I railroads – Union Pacific, BNSF and Kansas City Southern. It is propitiously situated at the intersection of Beltway 8 and State Highway 225, near the heart of Houston’s Americas-leading petrochemical industrial complex.

Petrochemical resin hub served

Proximity to the petrochemical hub is particularly vital as production – and export – of plastic resins flourishes, spurred by low prices for natural gas used as feedstock. The Pasadena Freeway building is a short truck dray from Port Houston’s bustling container terminals, while its rail links offer cost-efficient connections to other U.S. ports on both the East Coast and West Coast that also are engaged in the export of resins.

“Few buildings in the Houston market can compare to this facility,” Nolen said of the Pasadena property. “This asset aligns extremely well with CenterPoint’s national strategy of investing in warehouse and distribution space with ready access to major U.S. ports.”

While much of CenterPoint’s investment in the Houston market has been in the East Houston submarket, closest to Port Houston, the company also is pursuing opportunities in fast-growing West Houston. Population growth is bringing greater demand for a host of imported consumer products, building materials and other goods and, with it, a need for affordable strategically located warehouse and distribution space.

Baytown facility available for lease

Among the most desirable industrial properties CenterPoint Properties currently has available for lease in the Houston market is CenterPoint’s Baytown Intermodal Center, according to Danielle Radtke, the company’s senior vice president of asset management. The four-building center spans more than 1.2 million square feet and is served by Union Pacific and BNSF railroads. Notably, the property also boasts on-site storage for as many as 350 railcars at a time, an attractive feature for most any logistics or retail company and especially so for companies in the resin and petrochemical industries.

The Baytown facility is located in the Cedar Port Industrial Park, the nation’s largest rail- and barge-served industrial park and proximate to Port Houston’s Barbours Cut and Bayport container terminals via designated heavy-haul corridor routes.

“With its host of advantages, Baytown Intermodal Center is unquestionably one of America’s best leasing opportunities,” Radtke said, adding that the facility is ideally situated and equipped to serve companies racing to meet the rising demands of e-commerce consumption.

A brief video highlights logistical advantages offered by CenterPoint’s Baytown Intermodal Center, which provides ready access to rail, port and highway transportation.

Expansion plans broaden

CenterPoint’s present strategy not only calls for a mounting presence in the Houston area but also covers dynamic Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin-San Antonio markets.

“Houston combines with Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin-San Antonio to form the Texas Triangle, a megaregion which already is home to more than 70 percent of all Texans,” Nolen said.

To move this initiative forward, CenterPoint Properties is expanding its Texas-based team while actively pursuing acquisitions of logistically advantaged properties in all Texas Triangle markets.

Texas leading recovery

“While the COVID-19 pandemic brought temporary disruptions to the supply chain,” Nolen said, “we’re seeing very strong recovery in Houston and throughout Texas.

“Texas is leading the country in population growth and is at the forefront in America’s economic recovery,” he continued. “If it was a nation, Texas would be the ninth-largest economy in the world, and it consistently ranks as the most business-friendly U.S. state, with no corporate income tax, no personal income tax, relatively low cost of living, highly skilled workforce, abundant energy supply, easy access to global markets and predictable regulations.

“It is little wonder,” Nolen said, “that CenterPoint Properties is focusing upon building its portfolio of Texas industrial real estate to meet demands of current and future tenants for logistically advantaged warehouse and distribution space.”