www.REBusinessOnline.com April 2024 • Volume 20, Issue 2 IT SURE IS GOOD TO BE IN TEXAS he more things change, the more they stay the same. More than 150 years after the old French proverb was coined, industrial real estate professionals in Texas who have a penchant for philosophy may well be seeing its application play out in real time. While the industrial market has cooled from 2021 and early 2022, when insatiable demand drove record rent growth, there are still enough positive fundamentals within the space to coun-teract the likes of infl ation, interest rate hikes and geopolitical uncertainty dur-ing an election year. Against that back-drop, owners and brokers are frequently Proximity to Mexico’s manufacturing base and sustained interest from lenders help industrial developers and tenants overcome barriers to growth that are beyond their control. T By Taylor Williams reminded of how fortunate they are to be doing business in the Lone Star State. Muchos Gracias Job and population growth are the Letterman guests who need no intro-duction, as they have always driven expansion and value creation in Texas across all sects of commercial real estate. But as powerful as those drivers are, they’ve been there all along. In recent years, as disruption in debt markets has slowed industrial supply growth and infl ation has put pressure on ten-ants’ costs of occupancy, other macro-level forces have also emerged to buoy the market. Specifi cally, the impacts of Pictured is a rendering of Constellation Eldridge, a 537,375-square-foot project in northwest Houston by Constellation Real Estate Partners. The submarket represents an exceptionally healthy pocket of demand within Houston, according to the development team. SEE INDUSTRIAL page 20 EMBRACING SAFETY CULTURE IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN Beyond the obvious benefi ts, implementing safety-oriented protocols also helps create effi ciencies. By John Haba of Gensler tion. There is an urgent need to build more resilient supply chains and infrastruc-ture as international disruptions impact local economies. With this shift comes a great opportunity for industrial and logistics facilities to become more effi -cient, responsive and resilient. A key consideration in the evolution of the industrial sector is how a com-pany embraces safety culture. Safety culture focuses on preplanning the pro-cesses needed to achieve an end goal while also continuously and purpose-T he demands of global economics and trade continue to evolve in the wake of rapid digital transforma-fully reviewing and optimizing that goal as it relates to safety, quality, cost and constructability. There is demonstrated value in hav-ing architecture, engineering and con-struction consultants understand the signifi cance of safety culture because it allows for “outside the box” thinking to bring value to a solution. This leads to effi ciencies in construction and opera-tions, an increased quality of work and a better value proposition. What Ef ciencies? Today, site selection is more challeng-ing than ever before, primarily due to the connectivity of infrastructure and Pictured is the inside of the 132,000-square-foot headquarters building of TK Elevator, which is located within The Battery mixed-use complex in northwest Atlanta. Gensler worked with TK Elevator to implement rigorous safety features and protocols in advance of the facility opening in early 2022. SEE SAFETY page 22 INSIDE THIS ISSUE The Secret Ingredient to Industrial Supply Growth in Central Texas pages 14-15 Finding Ways to Support Energy Conservation Within Your Home page 16