Fast-rising San Antonio suburb emerges as serious contender.
How does a small city 16 miles northeast of downtown San Antonio differentiate itself from all other Texas towns and become a preferred destination for corporate facility investment?
If you’re Amy Madison, deputy director of economic development for the Schertz Economic Development Corp., you start by promoting your community’s three primary draws. “Our focus is to tell the story of our assets,” she says. “One, we have three new shovel-ready and building-ready industrial parks totaling 9 million square feet. Two, we have valuable community colleges and universities contributing to an excellent workforce; and three, we offer a low-cost environment for businesses and families alike.”
Photos courtesy of Titan Development
If you’re not familiar with the town of Schertz, you’re not alone. Until now, this rapidly growing San Antonio suburb that lies partially in Guadalupe, Bexar and Comal counties has not been a household name. This town founded by German immigrants in the mid-1800s has largely kept a low profile and flown under the radar even as it’s racked up impressive project wins: Amazon, Caterpillar, FedEx, Sysco, RNDC and UPS to name a few.
Even though Schertz — which grew from 18,000 people in 2000 to nearly 50,000 today — is the third-largest city in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area and the largest city in the Randolph Air Force Base Metrocom, it has yet to reach its breakthrough moment in economic development. Madison says that time is now.
“Interstate 35 splits our community of about roughly 45,000 people,” says Madison. “We’re at I-35 and I-10, and we’re working on getting the word out because we have 9 million square feet of planned or completed buildings in three industrial parks. We’ve had a lot of inventory come online quickly. Right now, we have 312 acres fed by water, sewer, roads and other utilities. We can accommodate up to 1.5 million square feet on a single floor.”
Product Placement Picks Up
The developer is Joe Iannacone, partner with Titan Development. He says that “hiring Amy Madison was the best thing the City of Schertz could have done.” He adds, “Amy has been awesome. We own land in Hutto, and we directly competed with her when she was the economic developer for Pflugerville in the Austin area.”
Today, they’re on the same team. “Titan has been around for 25 years. We’ve always focused on industrial development,” says Iannacone. “We’ve been developing product around San Antonio since 2005. We first came to Schertz when we bought 125 acres here in 2013. Since then, we’ve built out a little over 1.5 million square feet.”
He says the development has been so successful that Titan launched phase two of Schertz 35 Business Park on 300 acres. “We have a 200,000-sq.-ft. spec building that we recently delivered for tenants of 40,000 sq. ft. and up,” he notes. “We have another shovel-ready site for over 1 million sq. ft. that could go up to 1.6 million sq. ft. under roof. That is ready to go. It’s unique to San Antonio to have a site that big. We also have a 400,000-sq.-ft. building that is teed up.”
Iannacone says corporate prospects like Schertz because it caters to manufacturing firms that need more educated and technically trained workers. “The labor shed here is huge,” he adds. “You can pull labor from South Austin all the way down to San Antonio. That is a pretty big pool that Schertz can pull from — and you can hire a mix of talent here.”
Much of that talent acquires its skillsets from the many workforce training assets of the Alamo Colleges District, a network of five community colleges and five workforce training centers that serve greater San Antonio. Dr. Sammi M. Morrill, associate vice chancellor of operations for economic and workforce development, oversees vocational education and worker training for ACD.
“We are the only educational and training structure of this kind in Texas, and that gives us an advantage when it comes to worker training,” she says.
Doubling Manufacturing Training
How impactful is ACD? Consider this: Last fall, ACD hit a record enrollment of nearly 90,000 students and conferred 11,000 degrees or certificates. “We serve eight counties. That’s a big footprint,” Morrill notes. “We have an annual budget of around $1 billion.”
That budget is about to grow thanks to a just-passed bond of $987 million that will go toward funding expanded workforce programs. “We are focused on expanding the commercial construction trades, engineering, IT, nursing and health professions, automotive, advanced manufacturing, and transportation jobs including CDLs,” says Morrill. “We’ve doubled our manufacturing footprint in the last two years. As Toyota has expanded in San Antonio, so have we. We serve everyone from high school students to older adults whose employers send them to us for upskilling. That is a beautiful description of how we meet the needs of the whole talent pipeline.”
“The labor shed here is huge. You can pull labor from South Austin all the way down to San Antonio. That is a pretty big pool that Schertz can pull from — and you can hire a mix of talent here.”
— Joe Iannacone, Partner, Titan Development
You know who else thinks that’s beautiful? Madison. “The word ‘Schertz’ in German may mean ‘to jest,’ but we are not joking when we say that we have the best inventory available in South Texas; and we have the best trained workforce,” she says. “When you consider that we offer a labor shed of 750,000 trained workers with huge support from Alamo Colleges, and that 22% of our workforce comes from the military, we can come to the table quickly and find a spot for any employer. When you factor in the new Texas State Technical Training Center in Seguin and the University of Texas at San Antonio and the fact that we are only one hour from Austin, we are one of the hottest places in the U.S.”
From Amazon to UPS, Schertz is tallying big wins. “UPS came here and is now our fifth Fortune 100 company,” says Madison. “We’re working with several firms on background; and they will announce new locations soon. We anticipate seeing additional projects announced in Schertz before the end of the first quarter of 2026.”
In other words, Schertz won’t be flying under the radar much longer.
This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of the Schertz Economic Development Corporation. For more information, contact Amy Madison at amadison@schertz.com or go to www.schertz.com.
