Tesla leases 1M-SF warehouse in Brookshire’s Empire West Business Park
By Florian Martin, Houston Business Journal
Austin-based electric-car maker Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) has leased a 1.04 million-square-foot building in the Empire West Business Park in Brookshire, west of Katy.
The company, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is in the process of pulling permits for Building 9 in the 300-acre industrial park between Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 90, according to Jeremiah Hill, Brookshire City Council member and president of the city’s economic development board. The city’s building department issued Tesla a certificate of occupancy for the building’s office space on Oct. 11.
Chicago-based Cushman & Wakefield confirmed the lease was in the fourth quarter of 2022. Dallas-based Stream Realty Partners, which is developing Empire West, declined to confirm details of the lease or that it is with Tesla. The brokerage firm’s industrial leasing transaction report for the fourth quarter includes more than 1.46 million square feet leased to an automotive supplier, a food and beverage provider and a retailer in Empire West, which appears to include Building 9.
Tesla, which does not have a public relations department, is notoriously unresponsive to media requests, and a Houston Business Journal inquiry to its press email for North America bounced back. Musk did not respond to a message on Twitter.
It isn’t clear what Tesla will use the building for, but Hill suspects it will be for battery storage.
“We don’t have official confirmation of that, but that’s what we believe it’s going to be in that facility,” he said.
Tesla job listings on LinkedIn seek an associate manager and supervisors for production control for both day and night shifts in Brookshire.
The I-10-fronting building at 111 Empire Blvd. sits next to a facility occupied by plumbing and HVAC supply distributor Ferguson Enterprises. It was delivered last year as part of the second development phase for the industrial park, which included six buildings ranging from 124,000 to over 1 million square feet.
Stream started developing Empire West in June 2020 and completed the first phase in April 2021. The company has another 45 acres in the area that could be developed, but it has not announced plans for the remaining property.
The 2022 market value of Building 9 is $17.4 million, according to CommercialCafe.
Tesla and the city of Brookshire first communicated about plans for the facility around September, Hill said, and Tesla started pulling permits for building out the spec warehouse space in November or December.
Stream designed the small office space to be move-in ready, he said, and Tesla staff is already occupying the space. The warehouse area, on the other hand, was built as shell space.
“It does appear like a pretty large amount of work is going to be done to that facility to structure for their purposes,” Hill said.
He said he was excited about Tesla choosing the Brookshire area for a Houston-area facility.
Tesla moved its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin in 2021 — into its 4 million-square-foot Gigafactory. The company plans to add another 1.5 million square feet to it, the Austin Business Journal reported this week.
In Houston, Tesla has several service centers — including in Westchase, on Interstate 45 north of Greenspoint and in the Cypress area. It also has a showroom in the Galleria mall and The Woodlands and a collision center on Wagg Way Road south of the intersection of U.S. Highway 290 and State Highway 6.
In addition to making electric cars, Tesla and its subsidiaries also have expanded into energy storage with a 200 megawatt project in Angleton, north of Lake Jackson, and received approval to sell electricity to Texas consumers. Tesla also has proposed constructing a plant in South Texas that would process, refine and manufacture battery materials to support the company’s supply chain. The Robstown Independent School District unanimously approved a taxable value limitation for the proposed project under Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code during a Dec. 5 special meeting.
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