HOUSTON – The Houston industrial market is evolving, says Ryan Searle, industrial broker in the Houston offices of NAI Partners.
Industrial construction has been on rise, Searle says, as Houston has gain prominence as a distribution hub.
Large distribution projects, much bigger than what has been typical in the past, have been built in recent years. A 900,000-SF facility is under construction for Amazon in west Houston and 600,000-SF deal closed in Hines’ Pinto Business Park in north Houston.
And the construction boom is not expected to decline in 2018. “I think you’ll continue to see more development,” Searle says.
Searle recently joined NAI Partners, where he will be working with John Ferruzzo, partner and head of the firm’s Industrial group, and Nick Peterson, as part of a newly formed team at the company.
Searle joins NAI Partners from Lee & Associates, where he closed approximately 120 transactions in four years. “Ryan’s experience representing multitenant properties is the perfect complement to the work Nick and I tend to spend a lot of our time on, which is primarily freestanding buildings as well as bulk distribution tenant rep transactions,” said Ferruzzo.
Ferruzzo and Peterson have been on a tear of late, having completed in excess of $100 million of industrial transactions this year. That includes one of Houston’s largest industrial leases over the past few months, a 200,000-SF renewal and expansion at 713 Northpark Central Drive on behalf of Basintek.