Real estate official says industrial market booming
Published 5:00 am Saturday, January 4, 2020
- This is a 2017 rendering of a 108,960-square-foot building in the SouthPoint Industrial Park in Huntsville-annexed Limestone County.
One of Limestone County’s largest industrial parks could get even larger in 2020, thanks to the area’s booming economic fortunes.
Tom Mann, senior vice president of real estate for The Hollingsworth Companies, said the Huntsville market is the strongest of any in the company’s seven-state area. The Tennessee-based real estate company markets the SouthPoint Industrial Park, located near the intersection of Interstates 65 and 565.
“We’ve more than doubled in the last three years, and none of that is related to Mazda Toyota (Manufacturing),” Mann said.
The park has only two buildings left — one is 173,888 square feet and the other is 108,960 square feet. It also has three tracts available for a company preferring to build. The largest tract would accommodate a 400,000-square-foot structure.
Mann said the existing buildings would be best suited for distribution centers or Tier-2 or Tier-3 manufacturers. He doesn’t anticipate the park landing a Tier-1 supplier for the MTMUS project under construction northwest of the park, but he said smaller suppliers could find the location desirable.
Mann also doesn’t anticipate spinoff tenants from automotive manufacturer Bocar, because the company will bring in raw materials from outside for its manufacturing operations. Bocar is building a 300,000-square-foot Tier-1 facility that can be seen when traveling north on Interstate 65.
Officials previously announced the $115-million project would employ about 305 workers. Bocar manufactures high-pressure aluminum die-cast parts for a variety of automakers, including Honda, General Motors, Daimler, BMW, Toyota and Ford Motor Company. It also has machining and assembly operations.
Even if no other automotive suppliers show interest in the park, Mann believes there are plenty of companies in the Huntsville area looking to expand their operations.
“If you look at our growth so far, it’s really been growth from what was already in Huntsville,” he said, adding negotiations are underway with a company wanting to locate to the park.
He explained interest will also be fueled by the promise of improved infrastructure in Huntsville-annexed Limestone County, including the widening of Interstate 565 and an upgrade to the Tanner interchange off Interstate 65.
“I think those will help significantly,” he said.
Companies interested in Limestone County have plenty of other land options available, according to property listings on the Limestone County Economic Development Association’s website. The largest, a 1,323-acre site in the vicinity of U.S. 31 and Interstate 65, has an asking price of $32,500 per acre.
The second-largest is a 1,300-acre site 3 miles southwest of the future MTMUS development. The asking price is $35,000 per acre.
Visit https://hollingsworthcos.com or http://www.lceda.com for more information on available industrial properties.