DALLAS — Remember the empty-shelves era of the pandemic? Some of you may still be finishing up all that toilet paper you hoarded. Well, guess what’s in short supply now?
Space to store "excess" materials and inventory that has been piling up.
That’s because supply chains have gotten better. Also, inflation made us stop buying so much so there is now a glut of some merchandise.
And retailers have been ordering more and holding onto it so they don’t run out of stock again.
Big building construction
Accordingly, gargantuan new warehouses are needed to store all that extra inventory; and that requires wide-open expanses, which can, of course, be found in Texas.
Back in April, we reported that Dallas-Fort Worth led the country in new industrial development projects. With 54 million new square feet being built at that time, we made the cool comparison that it was equivalent to eight Pentagons worth of building space.
Now, a new report by Commercial Edge reveals that there’s now more square footage of industrial space being built locally than there was seven months ago.
DFW reportedly now has a construction pipeline of almost 67 million square feet. Some more comparison trivia: That’s equal to about 22 AT&T Stadiums. If you’ve never been there, it’s also roughly equal to 377 Super Walmarts!
That’s far and away the most in the country.
In fact, according to the report, the amount of industrial space planned here is about the same as the pipeline for similar new construction in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Baltimore, Tampa and Houston combined!
Why so much space here?
Analysts say this is happening because there are still delays getting unloaded cargo out of West Coast ports. Also, DFW has great access to send and receive shipments by interstate, by rail and by air.
And we’re conveniently positioned right in the middle of the country.
Also, DFW is close to the Texas-Mexico border, which is bustling as companies "onshore" or "near shore" their operations closer to the United States to circumvent pandemic supply chain issues.
On top of all that land is plentiful here and the experts say it’s cheaper here than other places to build and operate these huge sites which can be used to manufacture and assemble… and especially to store and distribute products.
The new report doesn’t offer a more detailed breakdown of how much square footage is being allocated for those various industrial space uses.