It’s official: FedEx Ground will lease facility at Triangle Innovation Point, near VinFast

NEW HILL – FedEx Ground will occupy a facility at the Triangle Innovation Point, which is also the location for VinFast’s $4 billion automotive assembly plant.

JLL, the commercial real estate agency, brokered the deal with FedEx Ground and announced the deal on Tuesday..

According to the statement, the facility that FedEx will occupy is known as Building One and is a part of the portion of the Triangle Innovation Point site known as TIP West.

FedEx previously shared with WRAL’s Ashley Talley that it would open a distribution center that would employ full-time and part-time workers, but did not disclose additional specifics regarding the total number of positions or the estimated wages for workers.

The statement from FedEx did note that the company planned to contract for package pickup and delivery services with service providers and that those companies would “hire locally for driver, helper, manager and other positions,” according to prior reporting from WRAL TechWire.

A statement from the company obtained by WRAL otes that the new facility will employ both full-time and part-time workers. The company did not disclose additional specifics regarding the number of jobs or estimated wages.

Additionally, the facility will contract for package pickup and delivery services with service provider businesses, the statement notes. Those service provider businesses “that hire locally for driver, helper, manager and other positions,” the statement reads.

FedEx also announced a facility in Wilson last month, with plans to hire some 200 workers.

Report: FedEx to hire 200, open distribution facility in Wilson

Space is in demand

There are still remaining sites at Triangle Innovation Point, in the TIP West portion of the site, for future development, JLL’s Matt Winters told WRAL TechWire earlier this year.

“Triangle Innovation Point provides a rare opportunity for future tenants to leverage unmatched speed to market in one of the fastest-growing regions in the country, and tenants will also have a competitive advantage by tapping into the Triangle’s highly educated talent pool,” said Winters in a statement shared with WRAL TechWire today. “Our team is thrilled to work with Samet Corporation and its partners on this high-profile project that speaks to the continued growth of the Raleigh Metro.”

Lot sizes range from 10 to 1,000 acres, with buildings from 35,000 to 1 million square feet, according to the statement.

According to a JLL report, Q4 Industrial Insight, industrial tenants signed leases totaling 122 million square feet in the fourth quarter of 2021 across the county, while vacancy dropped below 4% for the first time on record.

“In 2020 the pandemic shattered old consumer shopping habits, accelerating online shopping,” the report reads. “This ultimately sent shock waves down the supply chain system and contributed to an increase in warehouse demand as tenants grappled with ways to prevent a future shortage of inventory.”

What the $4B VinFast plant means for the Triangle – and the state

Demand strong, even with new inventory under construction

JLL anticipates demand will continue to outpace supply through the remainder of 2022, even as new construction comes available.

“COVID-19 pushed online adoption rates substantially higher than expected, driving continued leasing demand in 2020 and going into 2021 and 2022,” Mehtab Randhawa, a senior director of industrial research at JLL, told WRAL TechWire in an interview conducted as a part of the ongoing Future of Work series.

And vacancy in industrial space is even lower in the Triangle, with JLL’s research showing that while there is nearly 85 million square feet of existing inventory in the region, vacancy is at 1.7% as of the end of the first quarter of 2022.

That’s incredibly low, said Al Williams, senior vice president, industrial, at JLL, who is one of the brokers responsible for handle marketing and leasing for Triangle Innovation Point on behalf of its ownership group, a joint venture between Samet Corporation, Lee-Moore Capital, and a Denver-based family office.

Even though there are currently facilities with more than 5.7 million square feet under construction as of the end of 2021 across the Triangle, Williams told WRAL TechWire that 45% of that space is already preleased, meaning that once completed, it won’t be available.

“As a result, the gap between the amount of space being delivered to lease and the volume of tenant demand grew, resulting in a supply deficit,” the JLL report reads. “While deliveries are rebounding from the onset of the pandemic, supply growth is unable to keep pace.”