Continuing its rapid expansion in Central Texas, e-commerce giant Amazon has signed a lease for the entire 442,000 square feet of space in a new industrial project called Chisholm Trail Trade Center in Round Rock.
Otto Swingler, a vice president in Austin with Stream Realty Partners L.P., confirmed the lease Friday in an interview with the American-Statesman. The lease, signed in May, was first reported by the Austin Business Journal.
Transwestern Development Company developed Chisholm Trail Trade Center, which consists of three buildings and is off Interstate 35 and Old Settlers Boulevard.
Swingler said the transaction is one of the largest industrial leases signed in Central Texas in recent years. For a size comparison of the distribution facility, he said the 442,000 square feet of space is roughly equivalent to eight Walmart retail stores.
Swingler said Amazon actually needed only about 220,000 square feet of operating space, but ended up leasing all three buildings because they also needed more room for parking.
At Chisholm Trail, Amazon will operate its distribution center out of a building consisting of 180,700 square feet of space, Swingler said. The company will use the other two buildings — one with more than 170,000 square feet and the other with over 90,000 square feet of space — for its parking needs.
With that amount of parking for both employee vehicles and Amazon delivery vans, Swingler estimates Amazon could have 700 to 900 people working at the Chisholm Trail facility.
Amazon emailed a statement Friday saying the company “does not comment on rumors or speculation.”
Swingler said Amazon’s latest expansion in the region is driven by the acceleration of online shopping due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In nearby Pflugerville, and just east of Texas 130, Amazon is building a distribution center that will have 3.8 million square feet of space, Swingler said. That facility will be the biggest industrial distribution center to be built in the Central Texas region in two decades, he said, referencing the large TechRidge project that the Gottesman Company developed in the early 2000′s. Atlanta-based Seefried Industrial Properties has started initial site and utility work on the Pflugerville distribution center, Swingler said.
Swingler said he would estimate Amazon’s eventual headcount at the Pflugerville distribution center would be “between 1,000 and 2,000” employees.