Texas Sees Capital Spending Increase for Industrial Manufacturing Projects

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--If Texas were its own country, its economy would rank as the 12th largest in the world by gross domestic product (GDP). Manufacturing is a vital component, accounting for about 15% of the state's GDP. And while Texas may best be known for its petroleum refining and chemical industries, the state is actually a major manufacturing hub, with a varied industrial base in sectors such as fabricated metal products, computers and semiconductors, and motor vehicles. As a result, and in spite of the current stressed Oil & Gas Industry, capital spending is again on the rise in the state's manufacturing industry.

So far this year, Industrial Info has tracked 58 industrial-manufacturing capital projects in Texas that have or are expected to kick off construction, with a total expected investment of nearly $5 billion. The sectors with the highest anticipated investments are transportation and warehousing; and the most frequent projects are grassroot facilities.

The largest grassroot project to commence this year is the construction of a new data center for Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) (Menlo Park, California) in Fort Worth. The multi-phased investment is projected to exceed $500 million and create an initial 40 full-time jobs. The first phase, a 250,000-square-foot facility, is expected to be completed in 2016, but the data center will be expandable, tripling in size by the year 2020 to 750,000 square feet.

While grassroot developments are the most common type of capital-spending projects this year in the Lone Star State, the largest singular investment comes from a $1.4 billion expansion project at General Motors Corporation's (NYSE:GM) (Detroit, Michigan) Arlington Assembly Plant. This expansion will add more than 1 million square feet to the facility, and will include a new paint shop, body shop, parking garage, and general-assembly area upgrades.

In 2014, Industrial Info tracked only 28 capital projects in Texas totaling $950.4 million, which is half the number that it has tracked so far in 2015. Like this year, the 2014 projects were attributed to high spending in the warehousing sector; and again, the most common project type was grassroot development. The transportation sector came in second place, with one of the largest projects being the construction of an intermodal terminal for Kansas City Southern Railway's (NYSE:KSU) (KCS) (Kansas City, Missouri) in Wylie, Texas. The company already owned about 700 acres of land with an adjacent rail line; and used about 150 acres for the intermodal terminal.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, five offices in North America and 10 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.