NorthPoint Development’s growth streak in recent years culminated in the company landing a nationwide top ranking for industrial development.
In terms of square footage, the Riverside-based developer built more industrial space over the last five years — between mid-June 2015 and mid-June 2020 — than any other developer nationwide, according to recent data from Real Capital Analytics.
Under founder and CEO Nathaniel Hagedorn, NorthPoint built 46.5 million square feet of industrial space during that time frame, eking ahead of Dallas-based runner-up Hillwood Investments, chaired by Ross Perot Jr. and led by CEO Todd Platt, which built 41.1 million square feet.
Over those five years, NorthPoint also ranked fifth nationwide in terms of the estimated valuation for its industrial development, at $3.83 billion, the Real Capital Analytics data shows.
Above NorthPoint in the No. 4 spot was Atlanta-based Seefried Properties, which built $3.86 billion, including a $300 million Amazon fulfillment center in Kansas City, Kan. Seefried hopes to break ground this September on an $80 million distribution center — dubbed “Project Fairway” — within the CenterPoint Intermodal Center in south Kansas City.
And NorthPoint ranked sixth in terms of its number of developed properties, with 65 sites. The runner-up — Indianapolis-based Scannell Properties, with 88 sites — plans to buy the former Woodlands racetrack property in Kansas City, Kan., where it has proposed a 1 million-square-foot warehouse distribution center and office park.
Brent Miles, chief marketing officer and founding partner of NorthPoint, said the company was humbled to learn it had taken the five-year top spot for industrial square footage developed — an accomplishment he said executives did not know they had earned until Real Capital Analytics released its report.
“We just sort of ran our own race and didn’t know we were running a race,” he told the Kansas City Business Journal.
Chief Strategy Officer Jed Momot said one factor behind NorthPoint’s growth has been its focus on large-scale logistics park developments — such as its 26.5 million-square-foot-capacity Logistics Park Kansas City in Edgerton and 1.5 million-square-foot Northland Park in Kansas City.
Momot said the company has “the wind at our backs,” citing “strong fundamentals” and in-house engineering, architecture, data and legal teams.
“We’ve got this kind of head-down, gritty, scrappy attitude of ‘we’re just going to do the best that we can,'” he said.
Increasing industrial demand, driven by e-commerce growth and a return of manufacturing to the U.S. amid the Covid-19 pandemic, will contribute to NorthPoint’s estimated development of 20 million industrial square feet in 2020, and 80 million square feet over the next 24 to 36 months, Momot said.
“Our ability to react quickly and out-hustle the competition is a huge reason why we continue to grow,” he said. “Our brightest days are ahead. We’ve got a larger pipeline today than we’ve ever had.”