Texas does not skimp when it comes to logistics.
To get a sense of how entwined logistics and distribution operations are with the booming Texas economy, it helps to document where all of them are located. Then zoom in on one company in particular.
Between January 2025 and early April 2026 Site Selection magazine’s Conway Projects Database qualified no fewer than 518 corporate end-user facility investments with a distribution function — most of them solely devoted to logistics, but a healthy number also connected to manufacturing, office and headquarters operations. That’s one project every five square miles across the vast 261,258 square miles that comprise the state’s land mass.
No surprise: More than 25% of the projects are in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. But that’s nothing compared to the 47% located in Greater Houston. The table shows the breakdown.
Before Amazon announced a huge fulfillment center in Terrell, its transportation advantages were already playing to the advantage of another well-known Texas employer: Buc-ee’s.
Photo courtesy of Terrell EDC
Beyond the 139 projects in Greater Houston’s namesake city, among the top cities welcoming these projects to the Houston region are Baytown (18 projects in 2025), Katy (8), Pasadena (8), Brookshire (7), Stafford (6) and La Porte (6).
Bolstered by Hillwood’s AllianceTexas development, Fort Worth tops the DFW area with 37 projects, followed by Dallas (15), Grand Prairie (7); the trio of Irving, Denton and Arlington with five each and a large group of cities with four projects apiece: Carrollton, Coppell, Hutchins, Lewisville, McKinney and Rockwall.
One DFW town only tallied one distribution center in 2025, but it was a doozy: Amazon is creating 1,000 new jobs in Terrell, where last July it acquired 120 acres from Hunt Realty Investments Inc. to develop a 933,656-sq.-ft. fulfillment center.
Bring Amazon and Texas together and the big numbers get bigger fast.
An update Amazon shared in March 2026 stated that the company, which first invested in Texas in 2005, has invested $84.3 billion in the state since 2010, including infrastructure and employee compensation. The company employed 86,500 full- and part-time employees as of December 2024 and projects supporting another 65,000 indirect jobs in the state.
The Texas Amazon facility count now includes 49 fulfillment and sortation centers, five Prime Now fulfillment centers, 34 delivery stations and one Amazon Air Hub at AllianceTexas. The company works with a total of 22 Texas educational institutions through its Career Choice program, offering employees prepaid tuition for skills development. And its locations are not confined to large population centers. “Since 2021, Amazon has opened 15 delivery stations outside of major metropolitan areas in Texas, including Abilene, Lubbock, Tyler and Wichita Falls,” the company notes, with an average of 170 jobs at the delivery stations.
Leaders at Grainger, whose slogan is “For the ones who get it done,” are getting a new 400-job distribution center in Hockley done thanks to Hines and a welcoming business environment.
Photos courtesy of Grainger
1.2 Million Ought to Do the Trick
One Houston-area community welcoming a major logistics project is Hockley, which has attracted a 1.2 million-sq.-ft., 400-job distribution center from Chicago-based Grainger, the distributor of maintenance, repair and operating products. Plans call for the center, developed by Hines, to house more than 250,000 industrial supply items and create around 400 jobs on the 108-acre parcel in Hockley, located 37 miles northwest of Houston.
“Our customers want the right product, in the right place, in the right quantity, at the right time,” said Rob Reynolds, Grainger senior vice president, branch and DC operations, in early 2024 when the project was announced. “Greater Houston is an ideal location because it’s geographically close to current and potential customers, and it sits in the second fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States.”
Grainger is adding 3.5 million sq. ft. to its national network for a more than 35% increase in warehouse space. The company already operates more than 45 locations in Texas, including six branches within the city of Houston, plus a 374,000-sq.-ft. distribution center and 441,000-sq.-ft. bulk warehouse outside of Dallas.
Another major Chicago-area company, medical-surgical product distributor Medline, is constructing its own 1.2-million-sq.-ft. facility in Texas, located in Midlothian, 30 minutes south of DFW. The project, announced in March 2026, will increase the company’s national footprint from 45 centers to 46 when it becomes fully operational in Q2 2027, adding to a total of more than 26 million sq. ft. nationwide. The facility will complement another Dallas-area facility in Wilmer.
A $13 billion project to improve I-45 in Houston has launched. Between 2015 and 2040, average daily traffic volumes are projected to increase by as much as 40% in the project corridor.
Photo by halbergman: Getty Images
The I-45 Generation
The $13-billion, I-45 North Houston Highway Improvement Project, expected to take 18 years to complete, kicked off in late 2024. Commuters in the booming metro region may feel its impact for a while but the long-term economic development influence of the project will be felt for generations.
“This road is about economic development … You’re talking about joining the two sides of downtown,” said Texas Transportation Commissioner Steven Alvis. “In addition, it will move freight and give people back time. If you can save people 20 minutes twice a day, think about what that means for them and their families.”
The reasons behind the project are straightforward, led by this single statistic: Between the years 2015 and 2040, average daily traffic volumes are projected to increase by as much as 40% in the project corridor.
The project is designed to expand roadway capacity, reduce congestion, improve safety and enhance mobility along I-45 from I-69 to Beltway 8. It also includes rebuilding downtown Houston’s freeway system, which covers I-45, I-69, I-10 and SH 288. “A key element is rerouting I-45 to run parallel with I-69 and I-10 through downtown Houston,” notes the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
“We’re making big plays,” said J. Bruce Bugg, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, at the groundbreaking. “Getting Texans moving and out of traffic faster and safer is our goal.”
— Adam Bruns
