$20M Frigitek Facility To Be Built At TexAmericas Center

The $20 million cold storage facility at TexAmericas Center is the result of one-on-one meetings at Business Facilities LiveXchange, and will create at least 100 jobs.

Lionchase Holdings, Inc. is building a 200,000-square-foot cold storage facility at TexAmericas Center (TAC), one of the largest mixed use industrial parks in the United States with over 12,000 acres. The project is expected to create a minimum of 100 permanent full-time jobs, bring a minimum of $20 million in investment, and is the result of one-on-one meetings at Business Facilities LiveXchange.

TexAmericas Center
Image: TexAmericas Center

“This cold storage project will result in good jobs for the greater Texarkana region,” said Boyd Sartin, Chairman of the TexAmericas Center Board of Directors. “TexAmericas Center is remaining focused on the organization’s vision to create 12,000 jobs for this region, and we are excited to take another big step towards this goal.”

Lionchase Holdings’ proposal includes a state-of-the-art cold storage facility with Frigitek and energy-saving technologies. Building features include: 55’ ceilings, over 135,000 square feet of refrigeration and freezer floor space, dry storage, blast freezing, pre-cooling, and 3PL processing and packaging services. The facility will service the public and be professionally managed by cold storage industry specialists.

“The exciting element of this cold storage project is the spurred interest it will create among other linked industries within the food processing cluster who need access to cold storage supply chain services,” said Scott Norton, Executive Director/CEO for TexAmericas Center. “We anticipate that this development will attract additional leads from food processors, manufacturers and distributors to locate to the greater Texarkana region.”

Ken Brown, managing partner of Lionchase Holdings, toured the TexAmericas Center property in November and chose a site on the TAC East Campus at 650 Lamar Street. The project and site visit was a direct result of Eric Voyles, Executive Vice President and Chief Economic Development Officer for TexAmericas Center, marketing the property at the 2017 Business Facilities LiveXchange executive conference.

“We have really focused on increasing our marketing efforts during the past year,” said Voyles. “As a result, we have seen an increase in leads and site visits to the footprint. Our next step in moving this project forward will be to market the available cold storage space to businesses and highlight our concept for a 500-acre TexAmericas Center Food Processing Park.”

“Business Facilities LiveXchange creates the perfect environment for private sector firms to invest in opportunities promoted by local government,” said Brown. “In addition, the sponsors at LiveXchange are motivated, aggressive, passionate economic development officers. They deplore red tape and work tirelessly to make deals work. We owe Business Facilities LiveXchange everything for the opportunities we have secured at the TexAmericas Center, and another project with the Hernando County Office of Economic Development at the Brooksville Tampa Bay Regional Airport.”

Construction for the cold storage facility is slated to start this fall with a planned completion timeline of 18 months. The anticipated start of operations is by December 31, 2019. Lionchase will be represented by Chris Copenhaver, SIOR with Cushman and Wakefield. Copenhaver, who is the North American Co-Lead for the Food & Beverage Advisory Practice Group within the Logistics & Industrial Services Platform of Cushman & Wakefield, has begun marketing efforts to pre-lease the cold storage facility.

Located in the Texarkana metropolitan area, TexAmericas Center owns and operates one of the largest mixed use industrial parks in the United States. With roughly 12,000 development-ready acres of land and about 3 million square feet of commercial and industrial product, TexAmericas Center services the four states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas) markets.