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LaPORTE, TX-Following months of infrastructure development on 200 acres near the Port of Houston, an area developer is gearing up to break ground on a 900,000-sf, speculative distribution project. The estimated build-out cost is $32 million.

The project will be situated on about 43 acres at Underwood Business Park, located at the intersection of Underwood Road and US Highway 225. Ground is scheduled to break within a month; delivery is planned for first quarter 2007. Robert Clay, owner of locally based Clay Development & Construction Inc., plans to ask 34 cents per sf, net monthly, for the space, which has yet to officially hit the market.

"The buzz on the industrial side of the market in Houston is that the Port [of Houston] is where the growth is happening," explains Clay, whose company owns and is developing Underwood Business Park. Clay's in-house team is handling all aspects of the spec building's design, development and leasing. The plan calls for a 195-foot, rail-served truck court.

Clay tells GlobeSt.com that the area as a whole has attracted a lot of notice from developers and contractors nationwide. "We're seeing a lot of developers coming out there. We just leased a 200,000-sf building right across the street. This is the growth area in Houston and a lot of things are coming here," he adds, explaining why it's the right time to break ground on a large spec building in the area.

The booming industrial growth in and around the port is why Clay Development purchased Underwood Business Park from a Florida company in the spring. To date, Clay has completed a 139,000-sf distribution building for PolyOne Corp., a plastics and polymer manufacturing company headquartered in Avon Lake, OH.

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Developer Ready to Break Ground on 900,000-SF, $32M Spec Project

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