Elon Musk-led company growing its footprint across Central Texas
By Justin Sayers – Senior Staff Writer, Austin Business Journal
Jul 24, 2024
Tesla Inc. plans to take a 183,000-square-foot, rail-served building in the RCR Taylor Logistics Park that is being built by Houston-based Partners Real Estate.
It marks the latest example of the electric vehicle manufacturer’s growing footprint in the Austin suburbs. The Elon Musk-led company has more than 1 million square feet combined in Kyle, Hutto and now Taylor that offer ancillary support to its massive gigafactory in eastern Travis County, which spanned 10 million square feet of floor space at last count.
Tesla’s plans in the 750-acre RCR Taylor Logistics Park come about three months after Partners announced it was building the project, which will join a recently completed 366,000-square-foot speculative building in the park near the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. factory northeast of Austin.
Company officials said at the time that the new building was pre-leased but declined to share additional details, citing a non-disclosure agreement. But rumors have persisted over the last several weeks that Tesla intended to lease the site, which is near the auto ramp the company has used to ship its finished models by rail. The lease was confirmed by Aquila Commercial LLC based on market research shared with the ABJ.
It’s unclear how Tesla will use the location. Both Tesla and Partners did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tesla, like all of Musk’s companies, typically operates under a veil of secrecy — even disbanding its media department in 2020 — and requires companies it works with to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Regardless, the project is being celebrated as a win for Taylor and Williamson County.
Dave Porter, executive director of the Williamson County Economic Development Partnership, said Tesla’s addition to the RCR Taylor Logistics Park is helping establish Williamson County, including Taylor, as a hub for manufacturing and logistics.
It was reported last year that a trio of companies with ties to Samsung had purchased land in the park: South Korea-based chemicals company Soulbrain Holdings Co. Ltd., and two other logistics companies that operate in both Korea and the United States: HTNS America Inc. and ENC Inc. Texas Materials Inc. is also building materials plants at the site.
“Williamson County is grateful for a company of the caliber of Tesla to expand into our community,” Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell said. “We’re deeply grateful for their commitment and excited about our future together.”
Gigafactory is a magnet
It’s yet another example of the “Tesla effect,” a reference to how electric vehicle suppliers have flocked to the region in response to Tesla’s mammoth presence in eastern Travis County where the company has a huge factory and headquarters. Tesla’s expanding footprint in the area in recent years has made Central Texas a hub for the electric vehicle industry.
The ABJ has identified at least a dozen examples of the effect since the company announced its gigafactory in 2020. That has resulted in thousands of high-tech manufacturing or research-and-development jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars of capital investment and hundreds of thousands of square feet of industrial space devoted to Musk’s most recognizable brand.
Tesla itself has more than 1 million square feet at the Kyle/35 Logistics Park and 36,000 square feet in Hutto. Other big projects from industry suppliers include Futronic USA Inc. looking to create 350 jobs in Buda; supplier US Farathane Corp. taking an entire 410,000-square-foot building in Georgetown; and Hanwha Advanced Materials LLC building a $100 million, 200,000-square-foot advanced high-tech manufacturing facility near Georgetown.
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