Mexico is what drives El Paso. Mexico is the dog and El Paso is the tail. When the dog is happy the tail gets to wag, and we’re wagging pretty hard right now. The El Paso industrial market hasn’t been this strong since at least 1990. Juarez, Chihuahua, El Paso’s Mexican counterpart directly across the border, posted a third consecutive year of positive industrial absorption in 2015. Build-to-suit development activity is at a level not seen in five years. As a direct result, El Paso’s industrial vacancy rate dipped below 9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, the strongest tenancy performance in nearly a decade, according to Cushman & Wakefield | PIRES International. All the leasing activity we’ve been seeing has been chewing into the city’s vacancy rate. El Paso’s Class A vacancy rate is now below 2 percent. For example, in February, Los Angeles-based BH Properties leased a 409,000-square-foot industrial space located at 9600 Pan American Drive between Interstate 10 and the Rio Grande to a subsidiary of Sweden-based Electrolux Group. Electrolux Group chose the location because it is near the Zaragoza Bridge, El Paso’s far-east port of entry, providing convenient access to the company’s plant across the …
