Manufacturer expands logistics to northwest Houston building
Hot weather and a hot industrial market have combined to create an unlikely real estate deal.
Goodman Manufacturing Co. has signed a five-year lease for Northwest Logistics Center, a newly developed 411,460-squarefoot building by Stream Realty Partners in northwest Houston. The building is 21 miles from parent company Daikin’s 4.1 millionsquare-foot Texas Technology Park, which opened last year to consolidate the Japanese company’s air conditioning, heating and cooling systems operations in North America.
“Due to the success we’ve had with the facility, it has been determined that we needed extra space for our logistics operations,” Goodman director of communications Rex Anderson said.
“It’s been very hot across the U.S.,” Anderson said. “Unfortunately, we’re getting some natural disaster business from the hurricanes in Florida and hurricanes in Texas and last year’s fires in California.”
Goodman Manufacturing will take occupancy in the fourth quarter and ship products made in Waller to distributors across the country from the new center at 6751 N. Eldridge Parkway.
Daikin’s Waller facility, which consolidated three area locations, is among the world’s largest industrial buildings, with an area equates to about 74 football fields under one roof. The company employs between 6,000 and 7,000 workers at the new headquarters, Anderson said, and a small number of employees will relocate to the new distribution
center.
Daikin has room for expansion on its Waller campus, but “it was more efficient at the moment to utilize an existing space rather than build on our current property,” Anderson said.
The company owns the Waller facility, which houses distribution, manufacturing, engineering, marketing and sales functions.
Stream Realty Partners’ Northwest Logistics Center illustrates strength in the industrial market and a cycle Stream has dubbed ‘Texas Three Step’ involving developing, leasing and selling a project. However, the order on this project was different. Stream broke ground on the building one year after first getting a commitment from an institutional investor to buy the building before it was completed. Lastly, the company leased the building to Goodman Manufacturing, which was represented by Seth Koschak in Stream’s Dallas office.
The buyer, an existing Stream client, was not disclosed.
“This phenomenon illustrates the perfect marriage of extremely strong market fundamentals and institutional capital flocking to quality industrial product in Houston.” Stream partner Justin Robinson said in an announcement.
Leasing continues to outpace new supply in the northwest submarket, where vacancy stands at 6.1 percent, Stream said.
“We designed the building with the utmost flexibility to accommodate multiple users, but obviously are thrilled to land a single user,” Stream managing director Matteson Hamilton said. “Additionally, the opportunity to grow an existing client relationship was icing on the cake.”