WALLER COUNTY, TX (Covering Katy News) – As the Houston area continues to grow, the Waller County Economic Development Partnership (WCEDP) has been attracting significant industrial development to the Katy area.
With a focus on industrial projects, the WCEDP has helped the county and its cities continually reduce their tax rates over the past several years. Partners like the City of Katy have been instrumental in supporting the effort.
"We have some successes with the City of Katy," said WCEDP Executive Director Vince Yokom. “We worked together to entice Southern Glazers to locate their 676,000-square-foot distribution facility in the West 10 Business Park in 2019. We also created 1,000 jobs by attracting Amazon to locate a one-million-square-foot distribution facility along Interstate 10 on Waller County Property annexed by the City of Katy. This expansion by the City of Katy into Waller County sets the stage for more great projects," Yokom added.
Recently, WCEDP partners Clay Development and Falcon Commercial Development created an additional building inventory of almost three million square feet, which is now available for companies that want to locate in Waller County.
"This spec building program has generated over 10 million square feet of industrial space and has allowed us to compete for top projects," Yokom said.
A spec building, or speculatory building, is constructed by the developer before a tenant or buyer is found.
Clay Development is adding another 767,000-square-foot spec building to the Twinwood Industrial Park. This brings Clay's total spec space developed in Twinwood to just over 1.2 million square feet.
Falcon Development's Kingsland Ranch Logistics Center includes an additional 500,000 square feet available for new businesses to utilize.
Recently, Danish-owned Coloplast, a global leader in the manufacturing of specialized medical devices, set up its U.S. distribution center in one of the spec buildings in Kingsland Ranch.
Turkish-owned Elin Energy, one of Europe's largest solar-panel manufacturers, also recently moved into a spec building developed by WCEDP partners The Welcome Group and contractors KDW.
Waller County is now home to Elin's U.S. headquarters. KDW has been very active in Waller County, building the headquarters for MAN Energy Solutions and Goya Foods of Texas.
According to the WCEDP, this industrial development has created thousands of jobs and is now stimulating some great residential projects in Waller County and increased spending in Katy and Brookshire.
"We really value our partners and always want to bring them into projects and support their work whenever possible," Yokom said. "Counties have very little development power, so our partners really make it happen."
Yokom believes the partnership with the City of Katy will create great expansion opportunities for the city while providing a strong mechanism for future industrial development in Waller County.
"Katy's future is Waller County," Yokom said. “I'm glad we have such a great working relationship with the city."
For more information on the successful economic development projects of the WCEDP see the video below.
Covering Katy is proud to call The Waller County Economic Development Partnership a sponsor.