{"id":742018,"date":"2026-04-21T01:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T01:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/742018\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T01:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T01:33:17","slug":"so-many-different-forces-driving-houston-industrial-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/742018\/","title":{"rendered":"‘So Many Different Forces’ Driving Houston Industrial Activity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Developers are responding to strong demand indicators in Houston\u2019s industrial market, helping boost construction activity 7.1% quarter-over-quarter, according to JLL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Houston had 21.8M SF underway as of the first quarter, and its\u00a0construction pipeline growth outpaced the national average. The U.S. saw a 2.2% quarter-over-quarter increase in construction activity in Q1,\u00a0according to\u00a0JLL<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Houston region’s industrial development<\/a> has continued\u00a0on an upward trajectory since\u00a0dropping to a low of 11M SF<\/a>\u00a0in mid-2024 following\u00a0record-high deliveries of more than 35M SF<\/a> in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About 24% of the industrial space under construction is preleased, including eight of the 12 largest buildings under development, according to JLL\u2019s first-quarter industrial report. The largest project in the pipeline is Chicago-based Grainger<\/a>\u2019s 1.3M SF distribution center in Hockley, which is slated for completion this quarter and is\u00a0expected to create 400 jobs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The uptick isn\u2019t surprising, given Houston\u2019s lack of zoning, long-term demand drivers, labor presence and population growth, and Port Houston<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0record traffic, JLL Texas Research Director Rachel Alexander<\/a> said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDevelopers feel comfortable breaking ground on more products, securing new sites,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cI’m seeing that in all submarkets and in all size ranges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Houston saw 8.2M SF of leasing activity in the first quarter, including three deals of more than 500K SF. The region is attracting new-to-market tenants, which accounted for 30.7% of Q1 deal activity and five of the 10 largest leases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The diversity of Houston industrial<\/a> tenants is one of its strengths, Alexander said.<\/p>\n

Manufacturing<\/a> remains one of the top industries\u00a0for tenants in the market, accounting for 21% in the first quarter. That\u2019s down from about 32% in 2025 but up significantly from less than 5% in 2020 through 2022, indicating the long-term presence of manufacturers in Houston related to onshoring<\/a> trends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n A rendering of Grainger’s 1.2M SF distribution center in Hockley, Texas\n <\/p>\n

The other top industries of tenants in the market swap places in each update, but logistics and distribution, third-party logistics, retail, plastics\/packaging and energy\/utilities followed manufacturing in February, according to JLL data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat gets developers, capital and even occupiers comfortable with the market is that it has so many different forces that are driving it,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cIf there’s a year where population growth isn’t as strong or where there’s a hiccup in port traffic or something like that, you know that there’s enough other drivers to push it along.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But both of those indicators are going strong, with Port Houston posting record traffic in 2025<\/a> and the Houston region leading the country in population growth<\/a> from July 2024 to July 2025. JLL expects industrial groundbreakings to remain active across all sizes and the Houston market to absorb 20M SF or more this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While average asking rents grew 5% last year to 65 cents per SF\u00a0per month, Houston\u00a0industrial rents<\/a>\u00a0remain\u00a0well below the national average<\/a>. Starting rent growth is likely to climb another 5% this year, according to JLL.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur rents are more competitive than a lot of the coastal markets,\u201d Alexander said, explaining tenant and developer interest in Houston. \u201cWe’ve got the labor story and, again, the population\u00a0and the port.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Developers are responding to strong demand indicators in Houston\u2019s industrial market, helping boost construction activity 7.1% quarter-over-quarter, according…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":742019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[9886,235497,305946,4345,138558,81640,40809,138059,68342,358,3187],"class_list":["post-742018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-construction","tag-earnings-call","tag-grainger","tag-houston","tag-houston-industrial","tag-industrial-development","tag-jll","tag-port-houston","tag-rachel-alexander","tag-texas","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116440125896756195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}