Borderlands is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: Developers bullish on Texas logistics real estate; Waabi opens autonomous trucking terminal near Dallas; New Zealand logistics company invests in Texas facility; and Tier 1 automotive supplier expands in northern Mexico.
Developers bullish on Texas logistics real estate
Nick Dyer, principal at Ocotillo Capital Partners, sees nearshoring continuing to drive more growth along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Ocotillo Capital Partners (OCP) is a real estate investment firm focused on logistics and housing project across Texas. Dyer, who is based in San Antonio, co-founded OCP along with Josh Pollock in 2021.
OCP is currently developing Capote International Business Park in Pharr, Texas. The park is a 300-acre master-planned commercial/industrial development near the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge.
“High-quality warehouse space on the U.S.-Mexico border is critical infrastructure for the growing trend of nearshoring, which is changing global supply chains in real time,” Dyer said. “At OCP, we believe South Texas will play a crucial role in the North American supply chain for the next 20 years and beyond.”
In September, OCP broke ground on a 160,000-square-foot Class A spec building at Capote, featuring 36-inch clearance heights for racking, as well as dock doors, a truck court for trailer storage and a secured truck parking area.
The building, which will be the eighth in the park, is scheduled to be completed in June. Once it is completed, the park will have 1.1 million square feet of industrial space.
“High-quality warehouse space on the U.S.-Mexico border is critical infrastructure for the growing trend of nearshoring,” said Nick Dyer, principal at Ocotillo Capital Partners. Pictured is the Capote International Business Park in Pharr, Texas. (Photo: Ocotillo Capital Partners)
Capote International Business Park aims to take advantage of the 1,000 to 1,500 commercial trucks that cross between the U.S. and Mexico every day.
Trade at Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge totaled $45.8 billion in 2023. The bridge connects Pharr to Reynosa, Mexico, a major center for manufacturing in the country.
There are over 240 maquiladoras in the Reynosa area, with 174,000 employees. Maquiladoras are mainly located along the border and are defined as a factory in Mexico run by a foreign company and exporting its products to the country of that company.
International firms with maquiladora operations in Reynosa include TRW Automotive, LG, Jabil Circuit, Bissell, Maytag, Nokia, Panasonic, Delphi, Brunswick, Emerson, and Black+Decker.
Dyer said many of the companies that are expanding or looking for space in the Rio Grande Valley are already located in Mexico.
“Most of the nearshoring activities in the valley, the demand is coming from companies that have an existing presence on the Mexico side,” he said. They are just starting to ramp up operations, because it’s still early days of nearshoring. We’ve seen both manufacturers and 3PLs that already had a presence in Reynosa that seem to be needing more space on the U.S. side.”
The top commodities that crossed Pharr-Reynosa bridge last year included exports to Mexico such as gasoline ($3.2 billion), liquefied natural gas and petroleum ($2.1 billion), and pork ($652 million); and imports such as TV and computer monitors ($1.9 billion), avocados ($1.8 billion), and insulated cable wires ($1.5 billion).
Related: US-Mexico trade rises to $67B in February
Related: China boosts its Mexico investments as nearshoring opportunities grow
“We do see demand in Pharr,” Dyer said. “Pharr is one of the biggest crossings for fresh produce. That’s a space we don’t play in right now. We only do dry storage and logistics spaces. From a demand for dry space, it’s a mix of third-party logistics providers and manufacturers.”
Capote International Business Park actually began in 2007, and the first buildings were constructed by Phil and Newt Dyer, Nick’s father and grandfather. Capote is built on farmland that Newt Dyer acquired in the 1960s.
“My grandfather Newt Dyer was a farmer down in the Rio Grande Valley. He owned farmland back then that was kind of in the middle of nowhere in South Texas, near the border,” Nick Dyer said. “Then in the 1990s, the U.S. and Mexican governments put the Pharr-Reynosa bridge there. So my grandfather and father had the idea of putting a business park here with all this commerce coming over from Mexico.”
The park was named by Newt Dyer, who wanted to maintain some of the history of the land in the area.
“Capote was a small agricultural support community that was located in this area until the early to mid-20th century,” Nick Dyer said. “It eventually became abandoned. My grandfather Newt wanted to maintain some of that history, so he named his farming business “Capote Farms,” which then led to the naming of the park.”
Together Newt and Phil Dyer built six buildings over the course of about 12 years, the last one in 2017. Nick Dyer and Pollock picked up the baton and continued developing Capote International Business Park.
“We’ve brought larger capital relationships and more institutional real estate experience to the table,” Nick Dyer said. “We’re focused on industrial projects in Central and South Texas.”
In addition to Capote International Business Park, OCP is developing a project in Laredo and looking at potential projects in El Paso and Brownsville, Texas.
“Brownsville is a location that continues to pique our interest,” Nick Dyer said. “You have a lot of cross-border activity between Brownsville and Matamoros. Then you have a sort of wild card, which is the Port of Brownsville.”
The Port of Brownsville is at the southernmost tip of Texas along the Gulf of Mexico. It is the only deep-water seaport on the border, making it a major trade channel between Texas and Mexico.
“The Port of Brownsville has two new liquefied natural gas plants that are under construction in the area, so there will be a lot of activity with construction,” Nick Dyer said. “The port is generating more container and commercial trade in and out of the area. I think it’s potentially an untapped thing that hasn’t come to fruition quite yet.”
Waabi opens autonomous trucking terminal near Dallas
Autonomous trucking operator Waabi has moved into a flagship autonomous trucking terminal in Lancaster, Texas, according to a news release.
The 8-acre terminal includes several acres for trailer parking, a 24,000-square-foot office and maintenance shop, high-speed data offload, a fueling station, truck weighing scales, and dedicated pre-trip and post-trip inspection areas.
The terminal will serve as Waabi’s Texas home base, “enabling continued commercial expansion in the region,” the company said. Lancaster is about 16 miles south of Dallas.
Autonomous trucking operator Waabi has opened an 8-acre trucking terminal in Lancaster, Texas. (Photo: Waabi)
“Texas is a critical location for us as it is the home to our first commercial operations and several important shipping corridors,” Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi, said in a statement. “We see this facility as a key player in not only Waabi’s future, but the future of autonomous trucking, as we use it to scale our operations to continue pushing the boundaries of this industry.”
Toronto-based Waabi was founded in June 2021. The company uses generative AI to develop autonomous trucks.
New Zealand logistics company invests in Texas facility
Mainfreight Ltd., a logistics company headquartered in New Zealand, has signed a lease for a 62,000-square-foot freight terminal in Haslet, Texas, according to the Dallas Business Journal.
The terminal will have 86 dock doors and 20,000-square-feet of office space, as well as parking for trailers. It will be located on 21.3 acres, about 16 miles north of Fort Worth. The site is near the BNSF intermodal facility and Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport.
The terminal will be the first facility in Texas for Mainfreight, which handles freight services ranging from air and ocean containers to warehousing and distribution. It is scheduled to be completed in December.
Mainfreight Ltd. is based in Auckland and has 342 branches around the world. It employs nearly 11,000 people.
Tier 1 automotive supplier expands in northern Mexico
Kongsberg Automotive has opened a 166,840-square-foot factory in the Mexican city of Ramos Arizpe, about 179 miles from Laredo, Texas.
The facility will produce flow-control systems, high-performance hoses, and powertrain and electric vehicle applications for commercial vehicles.
“The Ramos Arizpe plant not only strengthens our global footprint, but also supports our ambitious plan to continue to double the flow control systems business in North America,” Linda Nyquist Evenrud, president and CEO, said in a statement.
Kongsberg Automotive is a global Tier 1 automotive supplier with headquarters in Zurich. The company opened its first factory in Ramos Arizpe in 2018.
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