AUSTIN-The state capital's R&D component has a worthy opponent in its L&D potential. And for commercial real estate professionals, logistics and distribution sites represent the next wave of development for Austin, say some around town.

At least that's what the home team is bracing for as the Austin-Bergstom International Airport expands and doubles its air cargo facilities. Meanwhile, there's land to be had in the immediate vicinity for L&D operators. “We're at ground zero,” Dean Janeff of NAI/Commercial Industrial Properties in Austin, explains to GlobeSt.com.

Janeff's interest lies in about 650 acres that he and Joyce Weedman, both NAI/CIP land specialists, are marketing for four landowners. In the past decade, NAI/CIP has brokered 1,727 acres in the area of the two-year-old airport. NAI/CIP brokers had sold another 700 acres in the 15 years prior.

“There's interest there,”Janeff says. In the coming year he expects that L&D operations will be coming out of the ground and fulfilling a task force's dream for a major logistical hub in Austin. An airport advisory group works closely with the Freight Forwarding Association and the city's L&D proponents.

According to the latest stats from the chamber of commerce, air cargo increased 51.7% in the past year–three times the national rate–and some are placing international air cargo up 1,000%. “Due to the increased cargo activity, we believe a number of distribution and logistics companies will be wanting to expand,” says Janeff.

The seeds already have been sown by other developers, in particular Howard Yancy's Met Center, a 193-acre business park with the potential of six million sf. Some two million sf has delivered and most of that is filled in the Zydeco Development project, says Janeff. But that project has strayed from the L&D strategy and now hosts motels and restaurants as well as business offices, with only a few tenants having airport-related operations.Weedman, in a recent report, says the infrastructure's in place for “rapid industrial development” for the southeast submarket. Entitled land is carrying price tags upward of $2.20 per sf. In her report, Weedman says word has it that Lockheed Corp. has snagged a couple of letters of intent for its airport-abutting tract.

“It's just a matter of getting a deal done, getting them in that space and getting them going,” Janeff says of the L&D operators being wooed by the multiple of landowners in the area.

Instant Insights /

Austin Preps for Logistics, Distribution Boom

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