Samuel Rhea, director of industrial leasing at Hillwood, an industrial, commercial and real estate development company, was a panelist at the 2025 Tarrant County Commercial Real Estate Forecast meeting Jan. 30 at Texas Christian University.
Current situation
Rhea, who has worked with Hillwood for nine years according to the company website, said that the Dallas-Fort Worth market is second in the country behind Chicago in the industrial market.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area has 1.2 billion square feet of industrial space and 417 million square feet is located within Tarrant County.
Rhea said that Hillwood has 90 million square feet in the Alliance area of Fort Worth.
“Our importance in the global supply chain has really, never been more important,” he said.
The DFW market, as a whole, has a 9.5% vacancy rate, up from 5.2% in 2022, Rhea said. Despite that rise, he noted that the absorption rate last featured 21 million square feet and rent growth is up 5% year over year compared to 2023.
Context
Rhea said there have not been many new construction projects that are 500,000 square feet or more in AllianceTexas. He attributes the slowdown to interest rates and tenant demand.
“We’re very bullish this year, especially in the second half of the year, as the vacancy rates are coming down,” Rhea said. “My big prediction is that for the west side of the Metroplex, we'll see 4 million square foot buildings start this year on the spec basis. So that would be a record year for us.”
The specifics
Rhea said there have been large investments by companies in the Alliance area in the mobility innovation zone, which includes unmanned aircraft systems and autonomous truck technology, according to the AllianceTexas website.
Torc—a self-driving technology subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG—recently signed a leasing agreement for a facility located in Hillwood’s AllianceTexas development.
“What Hillwood is focused on, is trying to make the best environment outside of the building for them to want to make those investments inside of the building,” Rhea said.
He said some companies have invested $100 million and $150 million in equipment inside the facilities in the Alliance area.