HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – A major cold storage facility is planned for the 15,000-acre Cedar Port Industrial Park near the Port of Houston, CBRE announced.
CBRE arranged joint venture equity and financing for Blackline Cold Storage, LLC to develop a new cold storage facility at Cedar Port Industrial Park, located in the Baytown area near the Grand Parkway.
CBRE’s Gordon Reynolds and Brian Myers of CBRE Capital Advisors, together with Jeff Stein and Brock Hudson of CBRE’s Debt and Structured Finance team in Houston, and Art Rasmussen and David Norrie from CBRE’s Food Facilities Group, worked on the placement of both equity and debt on behalf of Blackline Cold Storage. Blackline Cold Storage is a Houston-based real estate firm that specializes in the development and operation of temperature-controlled facilities.
The new facility will be part of the TGS Cedar Port Industrial Park, one of the largest master-planned, rail-and-barge-served industrial parks in the United States and among the earliest industrial parks near the Port of Houston to offer rail access.
Positioned within the heavy-haul corridor that serves the Barbours Cut and Bayport container terminals, the site provides strong logistics advantages for regional and national distribution.
The facility is planned to be approximately 300,000 square feet and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022. Development will take place on a 36-acre parcel recently purchased by Blackline and Artemis Real Estate Partners. Project specifications include multiple segregated temperature zones, 48-foot ceiling heights, as many as 50 truck doors, blast-freezing capability, and rail connectivity to support multimodal cargo movement.
Blackline selected the Tippmann Group—an experienced builder of temperature-controlled facilities—to design and construct the project. The design will allow flexible configurations for a range of temperature-controlled environments, including dedicated blast-freezing zones to support quick-freeze requirements for perishable goods.
Investor interest in cold storage assets has increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, driven in part by growth in online grocery sales and expanding demand for refrigerated and frozen food distribution. CBRE’s 2021 U.S. Real Estate Market Outlook highlights the rising appeal of cold storage properties, as supply-chain adjustments and e-commerce trends push demand for modern temperature-controlled infrastructure.
Cedar Port sits on land that previously hosted U.S. Steel’s Texas Works plant and is roughly three miles from ExxonMobil’s large Baytown refinery. The industrial park benefits from barge access to the Barbours Cut Terminal at the Port of Houston and an extensive rail network, reinforcing its role as a logistics hub for heavy industrial and distribution uses.
April 30, 2021 Realty News Report Copyright 2021
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Photo Credit: Blackline Cold Storage
File: Cold Storage to Chill