TexAmericas Center has moved up in the rankings for national industrial parks and is now No. 5 (previously #8) in the Business Facilities’ 17th Rankings Report, an annual assessment of economic development leaders.
The category for industrial parks reflects the increasing recognition of their importance to the growth of small- and middle-sized enterprises and weighs the size, space availability, shovel readiness, growth potential, and unique assets in order to rank facilities. All factors taken into consideration for this ranking were size, recent expansions, growth potential, and unique assets such as water resources, on-site utilities, and residential development for industrial park employees.
In addition to TexAmericas Center’s ranking, the state of Texas earned 45 total placements on the lists, a nod to the state’s attractiveness to companies, industries, and site selectors.
As a top industrial park, TexAmericas Center is situated along the Interstate 30 corridor in Northeast Texas, where it services markets in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas and serves as a catalyst of economic investment in the Texarkana region. Its 12,000 acres of development-ready land and 3.5 million square feet of space is fully entitled, providing potential tenants of specialized industries options that would be difficult or cost-prohibitive to secure in other regions.
While TexAmericas Center boasts easy interstate, rail, fiber, and air access, it also has low rates for taxes, labor, and its electricity, natural gas, and fiber utilities. A priority has been to build strong partnerships with the region’s leading educational institutions to help create a solid foundation of available skilled employees that will make the region and its sites appealing to prospective businesses. These factors, coupled with the organization’s reputation as problem-solvers and partners in mixed-use industrial development, led to the ranking.
“We’ve been able to flourish because we recognize what companies need to succeed and how to help them get there,” said Scott Norton, CEO and Executive Director of TexAmericas Center. “TexAmericas Center’s focus on continuous growth, constant improvement, and ongoing innovation has become the foundation that allows our tenants’ profitability to soar.”
Remediation efforts recently paid off, when TexAmericas Center received the go-ahead to open an additional 6,800 acres for development. The land required predevelopment environmental remediation because it was part of the former Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant. After more than 10 years of work, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved the enormous property for redevelopment, and it stands shovel-ready to accommodate even the biggest projects.
Among its newest offerings is a 150,000-square-foot speculative building on 24 acres. The multi-tenant, mixed-use facility has 32-foot clear height ceilings, one dock door per 5,000 square feet, and two drive-in doors. The building can subdivide down to 13,000-square-foot units as needed. It is scheduled to be completed later this summer.
Most recently, TexAmericas Center was awarded an $864,550 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to construct new rail facilities and refurbish those currently in operation. The EDA grant, which will be matched with $216,138 in local investment, is expected to create 157 jobs, retain five jobs, and generate $250,000 in private investment.
A diversity of industries successfully operates from TexAmericas Center, including defense, transportation equipment, oil and gas pipe, warehousing, construction, trucking, and food additive and supplement manufacturing. The industrial park is a designated U.S. Opportunity Zone, HUBZone, Foreign Trade Zone, and State of Texas Enterprise Zone.
