Navigating DFW’s Tight Construction Labor Market

Nationally, the construction industry has recovered more quickly than other industries, with employment nearing pre-pandemic levels and increasing new construction starts. But the continuing labor shortage is hamstringing the construction industry’s growth, requiring general contractors to be shrewd and proactive to successfully navigate today’s tight job market.

Construction-related businesses need to hire 740,000 new workers annually for the next three years to keep up with demand, according to several industry organizations. The number of open construction sector jobs currently averages between 300,000 and 400,000 each month.

The construction labor shortage will undoubtedly impact every organization that wants to build a new facility or improve an existing one. With that in mind, executives planning construction projects over the next three years should carefully vet their general contractor to make sure it has the necessary partners and relationships to staff their jobs.

Nearly five million people have quit their jobs over the past 18 months. This phenomenon, dubbed “The Great Resignation,” has left millions of jobs vacant across the nation. Click to read more at www.prnewswire.com.

Navigating DFW’s Tight Construction Labor Market

Nationally, the construction industry has recovered more quickly than other industries, with employment nearing pre-pandemic levels and increasing new construction starts. But the continuing labor shortage is hamstringing the construction industry’s growth, requiring general contractors to be shrewd and proactive to successfully navigate today’s tight job market.

Construction-related businesses need to hire 740,000 new workers annually for the next three years to keep up with demand, according to several industry organizations. The number of open construction sector jobs currently averages between 300,000 and 400,000 each month.

The construction labor shortage will undoubtedly impact every organization that wants to build a new facility or improve an existing one. With that in mind, executives planning construction projects over the next three years should carefully vet their general contractor to make sure it has the necessary partners and relationships to staff their jobs.

Nearly five million people have quit their jobs over the past 18 months. This phenomenon, dubbed “The Great Resignation,” has left millions of jobs vacant across the nation. Click to read more at www.dmagazine.com.

The Star District in Frisco to Add Five Restaurants in 2022

The Star District, part of the Dallas Cowboys’ 91-acre, mixed-use development that also houses the team’s headquarters and practice field, will welcome five new retail tenants in early 2022. A sixth, The Gents Place, recently opened its barbershop in the project.

The new leases, which totaled about 40,000 square feet, were secured by Dallas-based Venture Commercial. Here’s a look at the new retailers opening in the coming months.

Lombardi Cucina Italiana

Billed as a celebration of authentic Italian cuisine with a modern touch, Lombardi Cucina Italiana will occupy about 8,000 square feet at 6655 Winning Drive, Ste. 655. The restaurant’s aesthetic will feature an open-air villa vibe with greenery, Italian marble, and Venetian chandeliers. Click to read more at www.dmagazine.com.

‘All-Out’ Race For Commercial Real Estate In North Texas Could Stay Just As Hot In 2022

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – No doubt the North Texas real estate market saw unprecedented interest in 2021.

Real estate experts say it wasn’t just residential properties catching the eyes of hopefuls, but commercial listings too.

Luis Pina, the owner of Accent Commercial Real Estate in Dallas, says investors and business owners looking to score commercial properties in North Texas were in an all-out race.

Pina said, “After March of this year, people just went to the streets and started buying everything they could find.”

So much, he says, that now there are very few available listings in the commercial real estate sector.

Pina adds that many businesspeople both local and from out of town are specifically interested in buying retail space like strip malls and warehouses. Click to read more at www.dfw.cbslocal.com.

TexAmericas Center Completes Construction on Spec Building

TexAmericas Center Completes Construction on 150,000-Square Foot Spec Building | New Building Represents Investment, Confidence in Economic Development Efforts

TEXARKANA, USA (Dec. 7, 2021) – TexAmericas Center (TAC) today announced the completion of a new and innovative speculative (spec) building at its campus in Texarkana.

The 150,000-square-foot building on 24 acres is the first new building in the industrial park in 15 years and is now ready for new tenants to occupy the space.

“This building is a driver of economic development and a new chapter for regional growth in our area,” said Scott Norton, Executive Director and CEO of TexAmericas Center. “Hard work and forward thinking bring us to the next chapter for TexAmericas Center and the entire region as a whole. Completing the spec building reflects growing momentum and our confidence in opportunities.”

TexAmericas Center leaders worked with other community economic development professionals to plan the building, which includes features that are attractive to potential tenants, is flexible across a variety of industries, and scalable to meet a host of needs. The building is designed as a multi-tenant, mixed-use facility with 32-foot clear height ceilings, one dock door per 5,000 square feet, and two drive-in doors. The building will accommodate uses like large warehousing inventory akin to what you would find in a large metro market with the capability to subdivide down to 13,000-square-foot units as needed.

“The spec building brings immediate value to the region while laying the foundation for continued growth in terms of business activity, job creation, innovation, and more,” Norton said.

Tenants that use the spec building can take advantage of the impressive transportation corridor that includes multiple state highways, interstates, air freight, and rail lines. Additionally, new companies have access to skilled workers from a wide range of schools in the Texarkana area.

“The potential is endless for tenants who utilize the spec building and the complementing resources in the Texarkana region,” said Eric Voyles, Executive Vice President and Chief Economic Development Officer with TexAmericas Center. “We developed this project with the future in mind. We are so excited to welcome new industries and new jobs to the region, as well as help our current tenants grow.”

The spec building is another major accomplishment in a series of successes for TexAmericas Center. Recently, the company was awarded an $864,550 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to construct new rail facilities and repair existing ones. The grant is expected to create more than 150 jobs and expand operations within the TexAmericas Center footprint.

Beyond robust rail and construction activity, TexAmericas Center’s remediation efforts also are proving its commitment to supporting businesses and inviting industries to the region. Earlier in 2021, TexAmericas Center successfully completed remediating 6,800 acres of land through the United States Army’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permit. The comprehensive remediation efforts began in 2010 and required a lengthy process to ensure all standards and assurances were met correctly and completely. Now, the nearly 7,000 acres of shovel-ready land can be complemented by other attractive features, including the spec building.

TexAmericas Center is fulfilling its mission as a catalyst of economic investment in the Texarkana region. Since May 2014, it has increased its total leased square footage by more than 85 percent to more than 1 million square feet. Its 12,000 acres 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. Its location in the Texarkana metropolitan area offers an attractive pipeline of talent and a logistics network to rival many larger – and therefore more expensive – urban hubs. Additionally, TexAmericas Center offers a complement of unique assets like industrial-grade utilities including fiber, rail, third-party logistics services, and a transload facility.

About TexAmericas Center

Located in the Texarkana metropolitan area, TexAmericas Center owns and operates one of the largest mixed-use industrial parks in the United States. With roughly 12,000 development-ready acres of land and approximately 3.5 million square feet of commercial and industrial product, TexAmericas Center services four states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas).

In 2021, TexAmericas Center was ranked as the No. 5 industrial park in the country by Business Facilities magazine. Tenants appreciate an impressive transportation corridor that uses multiple state highways, interstates, air freight, and rail lines to disperse from a central U.S. location. TexAmericas Center also offers third-party logistics (3PL) services to assist companies with inventory management, warehousing, and fulfillment needs.

It is a designated US Opportunity Zone, HUBZone, New Market Tax Credit Census Tract, Foreign Trade Zone #258, and a Texas Enterprise Zone. TexAmericas Center has the operating capabilities of a municipality but functions like a traditional real estate development company, offering customized real estate solutions. For more information about TexAmericas Center, visit texamericascenter.com.

Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex Posts Eleven Straight Years of Positive Net Industrial Absorption

The industrial real estate boom happening across the country is nothing new in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In fact, the industrial market has performed so well in the north Texas Metroplex that Q3 numbers in a new report from CBRE indicate that there have been 44 consecutive quarters — or eleven years straight — of positive net industrial absorption.

And with the current crunch on the country’s already stressed supply chain,
that monumental momentum isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon. The
current vacancy rate in the Dallas industrial market? Just 4.6%.

Overall, 2021 has been a significant year for Dallas industrial. Year-to-date,
by the end of Q3, the region has witnessed nearly 30 million square feet of
absorption. In Q3 alone, there was 7.25 million square feet of absorption. Around 6.85 million square feet of industrial space was delivered in Q3 and another 31.3 million square feet of new industrial product was still under construction by the end of September.

And of the 31.3 million square feet of new space under construction by the end of the third quarter, nearly a third has already been pre-leased, the report details. Click to read more at www.rednews.com.