Basically the entire North Texas market is an industrial development hot spot, but two circles stand out: stretches of available land near local airports.

Indeed, 40% of the region's industrial pipeline sits within five miles of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport or Alliance Airport, CoStar data shows.

DFW has 39M SF of industrial properties under construction with roughly 15M SF, or 40%, located near these two airports.

“It signals that aerospace is an incredible factor when it comes to logistics and transportation in our area,” CoStar Group Senior Market Analyst Bill Kitchens said.

"Looking at DFW [Airport] from 2000 to 2019, we’ve added around 37M SF and that growth is up 53% over that time period [within a five-mile radius of the airport]. Looking ahead, we are seeing a pretty active year for deliveries, so in Q2 2020, we are expecting 3.3M SF to deliver [in the DFW Airport area]."

DFW Airport saw major industrial tenancy gains this year, with a 1.5M SF distribution center delivered to Peruvian fruit distributor El Pedregal S.A, CoStar said.

In addition, Trammell Crow has Passport Park, a 2M SF industrial park, under construction with an expected delivery in 2020.

AllianceTexas also experienced big gains in 2019 with tenant Stanley Black & Decker to occupy 1.2M SF at Alliance Northport 3. Hillwood is working on Westport 11, another industrial project expected to deliver by the end of 2019.

Urban infill properties in various submarkets may remain hot commodities for last-mile deliveries, but CoStar analysts said the most popular industrial play in North Texas is still having space in free-trade zones near an airport.

"While we like to tout e-commence as driving this, DFW [Airport] has had a competitive and comparative advantage in this area for some quiet time," CoStar Director of Market Analytics Paul Hendershot said.