Hillwood, developer of the massive AllianceTexas in Fort Worth, is planning to make the master-planned development even larger with the addition of three speculative industrial facilities totaling 1.5M SF.

One building, which will be between the airport and the BNSF intermodal facility, would become one of the largest modern distribution centers in the country, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.

That building will be called Alliance Westport 11 and measure 1M SF. Future expansion could take it to more than 2M SF.

The two other buildings, Northport 4 and Northport 5, will be smaller warehouses totaling about 500K SF in the Northlake section of Alliance.

“Our ‘on-demand’ approach, combined with numerous shovel-ready development sites, will allow us to continue providing speed-to-market opportunities in all sizes to accommodate both new and existing customers," Hillwood Senior Vice President Tony Creme said.

The three buildings put the total spec space started by Hillwood in Alliance during the last 12 months at nearly 4M SF. Demand has been intense there as well, with roughly 5M SF of Alliance industrial space leased in 2018.

Last week, toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker inked a deal to open a 1.2M SF distribution center at Alliance. The facility will function as the company's centralized hub for tools manufactured at its 30 U.S. plants.

Outsized demand has revved up the Metroplex industrial market in recent years.

According to CBRE data, 2018 was the third straight year of annual DFW absorption surpassing 20M SF. Industrial users took over 7.1M SF during the fourth quarter of 2018, bringing the year's absorption marketwide to 21.2M SF.

Product coming online totaled nearly 8.3M SF during Q4, with 40.3% of it pre-leased. The marketwide vacancy rate remained flat over the quarter, coming in at 6% at the end of 2018.

The North Fort Worth submarket bagged two of the larger deals in Q4 2018: Dematic leasing 707K SF in Synergy Crossing and Smart Warehousing taking 269K SF in Alliance Center North 15.