🔥🚧 2026 Texas Construction Pipeline Forecast: Where Ground-Up CRE Is Headed Next 🚀🏗️

🔥🚧 2026 Texas Construction Pipeline Forecast: Where Ground-Up CRE Is Headed Next 🚀🏗️

🏢📈 Texas Development Outlook 2026: The Hottest Ground-Up CRE Opportunities Revealed 🔎🔥

2026 Construction Pipeline Forecast: Where Ground-Up Demand Is Heading in Texas

Texas is entering one of the most strategically important construction cycles in years. After a period of cautious capital deployment, rising interest rates, and supply-chain volatility, 2026 is shaping up to be a re-acceleration year—but only in the right sectors, and only in the right markets.

For commercial real estate investors, developers, and business owners, understanding where shovel-ready demand is heading is the key to positioning yourself ahead of the curve.

Below is a breakdown of the strongest, most financeable, and highest-demand ground-up opportunities across Texas.

🔥 1. Industrial & Logistics Continue to Dominate (Especially West Houston & DFW)

Texas remains a logistics titan, and 2026 will push that momentum further.

Top drivers:

·Manufacturers reshoring and nearshoring

·AI-driven warehouse automation growth

·Record freight volumes along I-10, I-35, and the Grand Parkway

·Companies expanding “last-mile” distribution capacity

Where demand is hottest:

·Katy / Brookshire / Fulshear Industrial Corridor

·DFW Alliance & South Dallas Submarkets

·San Antonio I-35 Logistics Belt

Product types seeing the biggest demand:

·Industrial flex

·IOS (Industrial Outdoor Storage)

·100K–400K SF distribution warehouses

·Truck terminals and transportation hubs

Banks and private lenders overwhelmingly prefer industrial in 2026—making it the most financeable construction category in the state.

🔥 2. Medical Office & Healthcare Anchored Development Surges

Texas is experiencing a medical expansion wave, especially around suburban population growth corridors.

What’s driving it:

·Population migration into suburban counties

·Hospitals expanding west to capture new patient populations

·Surge in outpatient care and specialty clinics

·MOBs outperforming office in occupancy AND rent growth

Where ground-up demand is strongest:

·Katy/West Houston — Houston Methodist West, Texas Children's expansions

·Fulshear — new comprehensive care centers

·Frisco/Plano — medical district expansion

·San Antonio — outpatient care boom

Medical office is now considered a “defensive asset class” and is one of the few office categories lenders prefer financing.

🔥 3. Build-to-Rent (BTR) & Horizontal Multifamily Stay Red-Hot

Even with multifamily starts cooling nationally, Texas is still a leader in new construction housing demand.

Why BTR is still booming in 2026:

·Affordability gap vs homeownership keeps widening

·Families prefer neighborhood-style rentals

·Operators love the lower turnover/lower repair model

·Lenders still support BTR in strong absorption markets

Fastest-growing Texas BTR markets:

·Katy & Fulshear

·Leander & Round Rock

·Frisco / McKinney

·New Braunfels / San Marcos

Expect BTR to remain one of Texas’s most resilient development plays in 2026.

🔥 4. Mixed-Use Suburban Centers Make a Comeback

As work and lifestyle patterns shift permanently, suburban mixed-use is accelerating—especially in master-planned communities.

Drivers:

·Live-work-play demand

·Retail leasing stabilization in premium corridors

·Community-based retail outperforming malls

Top mixed-use markets:

·Elyson Town Center (Katy)

·Fulshear’s Downtown Redevelopment

·LaCenterra-style suburban lifestyle centers across Texas

Developers who pair retail + multifamily + greenspace will see the strongest pipelines.

🔥 5. Manufacturing & CHIPS Act Projects Add a New Layer of Construction Demand

Texas is becoming a technology and manufacturing hub, with billions flowing into semiconductor and data center infrastructure.

Where growth is accelerating:

·Taylor, TX (Samsung MEGA development)

·Austin semiconductor corridor

·Houston’s new AI and data infrastructure expansions

Industrial land near these megaprojects will see enormous demand for:

·Supplier facilities

·Assembly plants

·Warehousing

·Workforce housing

Key Takeaway for Investors & Business Owners

2026 won’t be a “build everything everywhere” kind of year.
It will be a targeted construction boom, concentrated in high-demand corridors where population, infrastructure, job growth, and lender appetite all align.

Texas remains the epicenter of U.S. development—and the smartest capital will follow these five categories:

1.Industrial

2.Medical

3.BTR

4.Mixed-Use Suburban

5.Manufacturing Support Infrastructure

If you want personalized insight on where to invest or build in 2026, let’s talk.

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© 2023-2024 Bill Rapp, Broker Associate, eXp Commercial Viking Enterprise Team