Category: News

Welcome Group Expands Outside of Texas With Two Acquisitions in Georgia

Posted on by Sarah

HOUSTON, Texas — April 22, 2021 Welcome Group, LLC has turned the old adage to “go west young man” on its head by heading east to acquire two commercial properties in Georgia. These two acquisitions mark Houston-based Welcome Group’s first purchases outside the state of Texas. In recent weeks, the Welcome Group closed on the purchases of The Shaw-Almex facility in Decatur, GA. This is a single-tenant industrial/office building that was built in 1984 and expanded upon in 1996. The property totals approximately 135,000 square feet on nearly 15 acres. Welcome Group purchased the 100%-leased Shaw-Almex property for a price of $8,900,000 ($65.66/SF). The Torsion Group facility in Tucker, GA. This is a single-tenant industrial/office building totaling approximately 49,700 square feet on 3.5 acres. The building is an industrial/office masonry facility with concrete tilt-up perimeter panels that was built in 1989. The purchase price was $3,900,000 ($78.49/SF). The property has five+ years remaining on a ten-year lease to Torsion Group Corp. With these acquisitions, the Welcome Group now has more than 5.7 million square feet of industrial and office space within its commercial real estate portfolio. “These first two out-of-state acquisitions mark an important milestone for our company,” said Welcome Wilson, Jr., President, and CEO of Welcome Group. “We believe the greater Atlanta area offers tremendous potential for growth. We’re also excited about the opportunity to further our expansion across the Southeast and move ever closer to our goal of acquiring 6 million square feet of commercial space by the end of 2021.” Welcome Group made nine additional acquisitions in 2020, comprising approximately 840,000 square feet of industrial warehouse and office space. This included the purchase of 23 acres for future development within Cedar Port Industrial Park in Baytown, TX, one of the largest industrial business parks in the United States. In early 2020, Welcome Group purchased 14.89 acres of raw land to develop a 66,151 square foot facility for JDR Cable Systems’ new U.S. Headquarters in Tomball, TX. The global subsea cable supplier and servicer company’s new headquarters will bring additional jobs to the local area. This recently developed project has just been completed; the Grand Opening will be held at the new facility, May 7th, 2021. Welcome Group continues to seek additional acquisition and development opportunities across the Southeastern United States. Ted Kakambouras is the Acquisitions Director of Southeast Region and can be contacted at tkakambouras@welcomegroup.com. “We are continuing to expand our footprint across the U.S. and are always interested in attractive new acquisition opportunities,” said Welcome. Click to read more at www.welcomegroup.com.

Diamond in the Industrial Rough: The One-of-a-Kind Offering Hidden Along the Texas Border

Posted on by Sarah

When you boil down real estate, it really just comes down to three factors: demand, supply, and location. The TexAmericas Center in Texarkana can claim two of those and this summer, when its new 150,000-square-foot spec building is complete, it will hit the trifecta.
Location
Texarkana, which is nestled at the cross-section of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, is an often-overlooked distributor’s dream. Nearly 54 million people live within 500 miles, almost 10 million more than are reachable from the Dallas market. “If your goal is to access a large market, we’re a better fit because we are closer to the population center, as well as the geographic center, of the United States,” says Eric Voyles, Executive Vice President and Chief Economic Development Officer at TexAmericas Center. “Plus, you get to stay in Texas if you operate from here.” TexAmericas Center is a special purpose district of the State of Texas with the mission of redeveloping former military property in Bowie County, including portions of the Red River Army Depot, with the purpose of creating quality jobs for the region “We act as a not-for-profit industrial development and management company,” Voyles explains. Created by the Texas Legislature in 1997 and fully operational by 2000, the organization just marked its 20th year of operation. “What Texarkana needed was product,” says Voyles. “This city is in a great location. It has an available workforce. Our taxes, labor, and utility rates are all well below the rest of the state.” Demand TexAmericas Center delivered that product, becoming a high-quality, value-driven solution for the industrial real estate market. Click to read more at www.rednews.com.

One Bright Spot in the Houston Office Market? Medical Leasing

Posted on by Sarah

The Houston metro area has a long way to go until its office market fully recovers. Houston led the nation in overall office vacancies at the new year at a staggering rate of 24%, but there is one bright spot in the market: medical leasing. It’s perhaps no surprise that there’s increased demand and growth in the healthcare and medical field across the nation during the pandemic, and the trend is likely to continue in the coming years. While traditional corporate offices sent their workers home throughout the worst months of the pandemic, medical businesses maintained a presence in the workplace as an essential service.

According to recent numbers from brokerage NAI Partners, a number of key metrics in the medical market in Houston reveal some optimistic signs. First, and perhaps most important, is the overall vacancy level of 16.8% from this past February was slightly lower than 17% from the same period a year prior. Additionally, gross average asking rent has increased slightly from $25.02 per square foot in February 2020 to $25.86 this last February.

However, there’s still a lot of space to fill and even more on the way. Overall medical office available increased from 18.5% to 21.1% year-over-year, and net absorption is way down, from nearly 157,000 square feet to -65,278 over the last year. There were no new deliveries to the market in February, but there remains nearly 864,000 square feet of office space currently under construction.


Leases of note mentioned in the report include a deal for a 35,000-square-foot space in the Bissonnet Medical Plaza in suburban Bellaire, a 20,000-square-foot lease at the Texas Medical Center near downtown Houston, and a 14,000-square-foot deal at the River Oaks Medical Center in Greenway Plaza.

“As Hot as We’ve Ever Seen It:” Texas Experts Pinpoint the State’s Industrial Hot Spots

Posted on by Sarah

At this time in 2020, it was hard to imagine that the industrial market could get much better. It was arguably already the strongest of the sectors when the pandemic hit. And while shutdowns had a devastating impact on other real estate markets, industrial only gained steam. “The Dallas industrial market is as hot as we have ever seen it,” says Josh Barnes, Senior Vice President of Holt Lunsford Commercial (HLC). “Tenant demand has continued to provide +/- 20M Square Feet of net absorption, which has allowed the development pipeline to remain strong.” The Metroplex was at or near the top of just about every nationwide industrial ranking a year ago thanks to its key position as a logistics hub. “Companies located here can access numerous markets in the United States, not to mention Texas itself. That’s 29 million people alone,” says Bill Baumgardner, Executive Vice President of VanTrust. “Dallas is the hub to all that.” The pandemic accelerated consumer buying habits, increasing e-commerce business and, in turn, the need for distribution sites. “All these consumer product companies are now focused heavily on what their e-commerce strategy is and how they get their goods to your home as quickly as possible,” Baumgardner says. “Couple that with the sustained population growth and job growth, that’s a great recipe for a solid industrial market,” adds Barnes.
Another side effect of the pandemic that has benefited the industrial sector: layoffs in other areas have helped remedy a long-standing labor shortage. “With traditional retail and hospitality taking their lumps during the pandemic, we’ve seen a migration of those workers into the industrial distribution sector,” says Baumgardner. Click to read more at www.rednews.com.

Ari Rastegar, The Oracle Of Austin

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Austin developer Ari Rastegar on how Covid will change real estate in large American cities forever… and how Texas is cashing in. He closed 11 major commercial real estate deals during the Covid-19 pandemic. This came after years of telling anyone who would listen how much opportunity there was in the central Texas capitol city many refer to as Silicon Hills. His proclamation earned Ari Rastegar the moniker ‘Oracle of Austin’. But Ari Rastegar isn’t stopping with Austin. “Austin was our prototype to establish and then expand around the Sun Belt,” says Rastegar, founder of Rastegar Property Company, an Austin-based CRE investment firm & vertically integrated real estate company with a focus on value-oriented real estate. “Nashville, Dallas, Phoenix, Raleigh and Tampa – the Sun Belt is hotter than it has ever been, and we see no end to the migration. You think Austin is exciting?” says Rastegar. “Get ready!” For years he watched droves of young professionals making their way to Austin, and he took careful note. That’s why, when the pandemic hit, Rastegar realized it would only expedite these migration trends. He utilized this insight and his uncanny ability to see around corners to position and propel Rastegar’s business plan forward. Now, that vision is bearing its fruit as companies like Apple, Facebook and Amazon invest long term in the city where he was born. Rastegar’s keen understanding of his hometown —- where he made his first real estate deal while in law school — gave him the advantage of knowing exactly where the young professionals coming to the city would want to live and the type of housing that would appeal to them. Click to read more at www.forbes.com.

Austin Sizzles as Country’s Hottest Commercial Real Estate Market for 2021

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The eyes of Texas — and the entire world of commercial real estate — appear to be upon Austin. In a new survey from commercial real estate services company CBRE, commercial real estate investors rank Austin first among U.S. metro areas for investment prospects in 2021. Austin knocked Los Angeles off its previous first-place perch. Dallas-Fort Worth comes in at No. 2, with Los Angeles holding down the No. 3 spot. Austin appeared at No. 3 in CBRE’s 2020 survey and No. 11 in the 2019 version. Dallas-Fort Worth ranked second in 2019 and 2020, while LA ranked first in those two years. “The Sun Belt markets of Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, and Atlanta were among the top-performing metros where the least number of jobs were lost in 2020,” CBRE says in its survey findings. For the first time in the history of the CBRE survey, big-time investors (those that manage assets of more than $50 billion) preferred smaller markets like Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth over mega-markets like New York City and San Francisco. CBRE says markets such as Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth “will see intense competition for good-quality assets from all types of investors.” At the same time, commercial real estate services company JLL names Austin one of the “rising star” cities for investment in the U.S. Also in that category are Dallas; Denver; Charlotte, North Carolina; Miami; Nashville; and Raleigh, North Carolina. JLL cites population growth and job growth, as well as a lower cost of living and shorter commute times than places like New York City and San Francisco, as reasons for its bullish outlook regarding “rising star” locales. Click to read more at www.austin.culturemap.com.