TexAmericas Center has earned recognition as the No. 5 Best Industrial Park in the U.S. by Business Facilities’ 18th Rankings Report, an annual assessment of economic development leaders. This is the third year in a row TexAmericas Center has ranked in the Top 10.

The category for industrial parks reflects the increasing recognition of their importance to the growth of small- and middle-sized enterprises and weighs the size, space availability, shovel readiness, growth potential, and unique assets in order to rank facilities. The factors taken into consideration for this ranking include size, recent expansions, growth potential, and unique assets such as water resources, on-site utilities, and residential development for industrial park employees.

TexAmericas Center, which just celebrated its 25th anniversary of servicing markets in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, is as a catalyst of economic investment in the Texarkana region. Its 12,000 acres of development-ready land and 3.5 million square feet of space is fully entitled, providing potential tenants of specialized industries options that would be difficult or cost-prohibitive to secure in other regions.

The organization has 41 corporate citizens on the property, including seven property owners and 34 renters. The growth in the number companies on the property represents a 105% increase since 2014, while the amount of leased space has increased by 79%.

In the past year, TexAmericas Center has added rail services to its portfolio of offerings. Now, 11 businesses are taking advantage of transload, rail car storage and movement services on the TexAmericas Center footprint. Additionally, six companies have signed on to use TAC 3PL, a service line that was launched in 2020. Services include inventory management, warehousing, and fulfillment needs.

Among its newest offerings is a 150,000-square-foot speculative building on 24 acres. The multi-tenant, mixed-use facility has 32-foot clear height ceilings, one dock door per 5,000 square feet, and two drive-in doors. The building can subdivide down to 13,000-square-foot units as needed. Upon completion of the building, TexAmericas Center has quickly turned its attention to build-to-suit offerings.

While TexAmericas Center boasts easy interstate, rail, fiber, and air access, it also has low rates for taxes, labor, and its electricity, natural gas, and fiber utilities. A priority has been to build strong partnerships with the region’s leading educational institutions to help create a solid foundation of available skilled employees that will make the region and its sites appealing to prospective businesses. These factors, coupled with the organization’s reputation as problem-solvers and partners in mixed-use industrial development, has led to three years of ranking as a Top 10 Industrial Park in the U.S.

A diversity of industries successfully operates from TexAmericas Center, including defense, transportation equipment, oil and gas pipe, warehousing, construction, trucking, and food additive and supplement manufacturing. The industrial park is a designated U.S. Opportunity Zone, HUBZone, Foreign Trade Zone, and State of Texas Enterprise Zone.

It’s been a popular narrative for years: Online shopping is slowly killing brick-and-mortar retail. But what if this narrative isn’t true?

It’s a question addressed by Lee & Associates in its second quarter 2022 national retail overview. In its latest research, Lee & Associates says that in-person shopping is steadily regaining its popularity.

And this, the company said, is taking a toll on e-commerce sales.

According to the overview, merchant demand for retail space in the United States is higher than its been since 2017. Net absorption in the U.S. retail sector is now on track to expand by nearly 80 million square feet in 2022.

Empty storefronts are filling up, too. Lee & Associates reports that the overall retail vacancy rate fell by 60 basis points in the first and second quarters of this year, dropping to 4.4%. That’s the lowest retail vacancy rate on record.

What’s behind this? Lee & Associates pointed to financially strong consumers. Last year, in-person shopping gained on e-commerce, which Lee & Associates says might be a first. The company pointed to an analysis by Mastercard saying that U.S. online purchases fell in March for the first time in a decade.

Then there’s the Amazon effect. As Lee & Associates says, the retail giant’s online sales fell 3% in the first quarter of 2022 to $51.1 billion. Amazon wasn’t alone, though, in seeing its online sales fall. Etsy and Shopify also posted unexpectedly low sales, Lee & Associates said.

Meanwhile, rent growth for physical retail is averaging 4%, the most in more than a decade in the United States.

Investors are taking note. Lee & Associates said that more than $23 billion in retail properties traded hands in the first quarter of this year, the most ever.

Several Midwest markets are enjoying low vacancy rates in the retail sector. Indianapolis’ retail vacancy rate was 3.6% in the second quarter, while this rate stood at 3.1% in Minneapolis, 3% in Madison, 3.6% in Nashville and 3.9% in Columbus.