TexAmericas Center (TAC), which owns and operates the 3rd ranked industrial park and is one of the largest mixed-use industrial parks in the United States, announced its Brazos Site has been qualified as “Shovel-Ready” and is well-suited for industrial development, and prepared to be certified.
The 250-acre Brazos Site is a shovel-ready, rail-served, greenfield development site situated on the TexAmericas Center East Campus (TAC East). The site is at the southeast corner of the intersection of Cass and Oak streets, both 80,000 pound truck routes, adjacent to a rail spur, and served by all utilities, each with industrial capacities. The site is positioned to be the prominent development location near the entry into TAC East.
This property was a wooded buffer area separating a former industrial tract from adjacent roadways and other land uses on the former U.S. Army facility.
“The Brazos Site is an exceptional location for major development, with soil suited for large construction, direct access to water and sewer, low-cost electrical power, high-speed fiber, natural gas, and impressive proximity to a logistics corridor that gives direct access to major interstates while being a Union Pacific (UP) served site,” said TexAmericas Center CEO Scott Norton.
Earlier this year, TexAmericas Center launched its Qualified Sites Program (QSP) that is intended to improve on its brand promise of Speed-to-Market and Speed-to-Profit for companies interested in locating on its 12,000-acre industrial park in Northeast Texas. TexAmericas Center intends to pre- qualify all of its property through this standardized process to ensure the sites can meet the requirements of industry. The organization already offers tools such as expedited permitting and fast-track construction programs; working with a qualified site that is “shovel-ready” can shave months off of a development schedule. The time-savings is a valuable commodity.
Through the QSP, an on-staff Professional Engineer (PE) and economic development professional, each with exceptional knowledge of company needs, grades a specific site for how well suited it is for industrial or commercial development based upon various site selection characteristics. Those characteristics include proximity to transportation infrastructure; access to utilities including electrical, natural gas, fiber, water and sewer; soil testing for condition and characteristics; title oversight; and other site selection due diligence standards.
“When prospective tenants, commercial real estate agents and site search consultants come to us, we can save them time and money in the long run because of the depth of our due diligence we have already performed on their behalf,” said Eric Voyles, executive vice president and chief economic development officer at TexAmericas Center. “The best part for them is it’s free to access.”
Certified Sites have become an important part of the site selection process, especially Mega Sites, sites over 500 acres. Because TexAmericas Center is self-certifying its sites, the organization is calling its product a “qualified” site,” meaning that they have assembled all the information on the site and it is capable of being certified.
The QSP serves as an honest, realistic assessment of the developability, quality, and type of shovel - ready sites available today at TexAmericas Center. The broader goals are to create a high standard for the inventory of available sites, filling an identified market gap, in the greater Texarkana industrial and commercial marketplace.
The program is spearheaded by TexAmericas Center Executive Vice President/Chief Operations Officer Jeff Whitten, P.E. at TexAmericas Center. Whitten is responsible for day-to-day operations, property maintenance, and procurement and management of all real and personal property . He is also heavily involved with the planning and management of the retrofit of existing buildings and development of new facilities for the purpose of transaction or lease for job creation.
Having worked with a growing engineering firm in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, been a municipal public works director, and operated his own engineering firm, Jeff brings nearly 30 years of experience in both the public and private sectors.