North Houston is getting a purpose-built answer to one of the region’s tightest industrial niches: manufacturing space. JLL and Houston-based developer RevKo announced the groundbreaking of AeroPoint 1960, a two-phase, 457,000-square-foot manufacturing and crane-served campus at 5301 Farm to Market 1960 Road East near George Bush Intercontinental Airport, according to announcements from JLL and trade press coverage this week.

Phase I comprises five freestanding manufacturing buildings totaling roughly 202,000 square feet, with delivery slated for the third quarter of 2027. The buildings are designed for users that need crane-served manufacturing space, with dedicated industrial outdoor storage yards planned for each building — a layout tailored to energy services, fabrication and equipment companies that make up a large share of Houston’s manufacturing base. Phase II will add about 255,000 square feet, offered as build-to-suit and design-build opportunities for companies seeking customized facilities.

The project responds to a structural shortage. Crane-served manufacturing vacancy in Houston stands at approximately 2 percent citywide, while overall manufacturing vacancy was about 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2026 — far below the 7.5 percent vacancy in the overall industrial market. Much of the region’s recent industrial construction has focused on large-scale logistics and warehouse facilities rather than manufacturing plants, leaving manufacturers with few modern options.

“Manufacturing users are facing a very different market than traditional warehouse and distribution users, with limited availability of specialized, crane-served space across Houston,” said Geoff Perrott, executive vice president at JLL, who is marketing the development along with senior vice president David Holland. “AeroPoint 1960 is well positioned to meet that demand, offering companies the flexibility, location and infrastructure they need to support their operations.”

RevKo’s development team will be led by CEO Jon Sellers, with Principal Boomer White joining the JLL leasing team on the project. “We saw an opportunity to bring much-needed manufacturing space to a market where supply remains limited,” Sellers said, noting the campus gives manufacturers and owner-users flexibility between speculative buildings and build-to-suit facilities.

The location near IAH ties into a broader growth story along Houston’s north corridor, where airport-proximate logistics and industrial campuses have been among the metro’s most active development zones. The site also sits within reach of the region’s energy and petrochemical supply chains, which rely on fabricators able to handle oversized equipment — exactly the users who need overhead cranes and outdoor storage yards.

The groundbreaking follows a string of industrial announcements across the metro this month, including Bisnow’s report that developers launched roughly 900,000 square feet of industrial and manufacturing projects in Houston, part of a wave of investment aimed at rebuilding the region’s stock of production space after years in which distribution centers dominated new construction. Industry analysts credit reshoring trends, energy-sector capital spending and the growth of advanced manufacturing for the shift.

For North Houston, the campus adds to a manufacturing employment base that has grown with the broader metro economy. The metro area has kept adding jobs while the national unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in October as job growth surprised economists, and manufacturers across the region continue to report difficulty finding both workers and suitable facilities. AeroPoint’s developers are betting that the buildings, available for occupancy beginning in 2027, will be ready just as that demand continues to build out along the FM 1960 corridor.