Amid booming demand for industrial space, another big project is in the works for South Austin.

Jackson-Shaw, a real estate development firm based in North Texas, plans to develop 67 acres at Texas 130 and Elroy Road.

The new industrial business park, called ATX 130, will have 602,400 square feet of office, warehouse and distribution space.

“This is a prime location on Highway 130, minutes from the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Tesla and core Austin,” said Miles Terry, vice president of development for Jackson-Shaw.

The project is scheduled to break ground in March with building sizes of 120,440 square feet, 80,365 square feet, 207,180 square feet and 194,385 square feet.

“ATX 130 is breaking ground at an excellent time in an under-supplied submarket, and it’s designed with flexibility in mind, targeting tenants from 16,000 up to 395,000 square feet while offering trailer parking and outside storage,” said Leigh Ellis, principal with Aquila Commercial.

Ferguson Enterprises, a North American distributor, has preleased one of the project's buildings, a total of 207,180 square feet. Ferguson is a distributor of plumbing supplies, PVF, waterworks and fire and fabrication products. It is also a major distributor of heating and air conditioning equipment and industrial products and services.

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Industrial space continues to be one of the strongest commercial property types in the nation and across Central Texas, Austin-area industrial brokers say.

In September, Chicago-based Molto Properties announced plans for Blue Springs Business Park, which will bring buildings with more than 600,000 square feet of space to Georgetown, north of Austin.

Across the Austin region, commercial real estate firm Transwestern is tracking 13.8 million square feet of industrial space that is under construction, a 445% increase over pre-pandemic construction levels, said Karen Judson, Transwestern's senior vice president of marketing and research in Austin.

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In addition, more than 24 million square feet of proposed industrial projects are in the pipeline and ready to start, most of which are along the Texas 130 corridor between Georgetown and San Marcos, Judson said.

In a report late last year, commercial real estate services firm CBRE said Central Texas' growing population, increased manufacturing led by companies including Tesla and Samsung, and other factors are expected to continue to drive strong demand for industrial space for the foreseeable future.

"Supply-chain disruption and rising transportation costs during the pandemic have driven historic demand for warehouse space closer to population centers," said Darryl Dadon, senior vice president with CBRE's Industrial & Logistics platform in Austin.

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Austin's population growth has been one of the main factors fueling demand for goods in the region, which is seeing unprecedented industrial growth, local brokers say.

"Consumers are demanding goods faster than ever, which requires goods to be stored in warehouses closer to consumers," Sam Owen, managing director and partner in the Austin office of Stream Realty Partners, told the American-Statesman.

Even with all the new space coming online, industrial vacancy has dropped almost by half, from 7% in 2019 to 3.9% currently, Transwestern's Judson said.

"The big manufacturing and chip companies are adding to this industrial growth since suppliers and ancillary companies want to locate near the big Samsung and Tesla sites, causing developers to snatch up land around these campuses," Judson said. "Even with Amazon pulling back on their warehouse footprint nationally, industrial demand in the Central Texas market will remain strong for the foreseeable future."

American-Statesman reporter Shonda Novak contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: New industrial park planned not far from Austin airport, Tesla facility