After more than 80 years under the same flag, Waco’s massive glass plant at 5200 Beverly Drive has a new owner. The 1 million square foot facility changed hands this week for the first time since it was built in 1943, with Keating Resources stepping in to reposition the 55 acre complex as multi-tenant industrial space. The company is keeping the sale price under wraps.
Quiet Sale For A World War II Workhorse
As reported by The Real Deal, longtime operator O-I, formerly Owens-Illinois, opted for an off-market transaction on the historic factory. The plant dates back to World War II and went on to crank out bottles for brands like Dr Pepper and Lone Star Beer, a long run that helped define Waco’s industrial identity.
Keating told the outlet it plans to break up roughly 907,000 square feet of the building into 100,000 square foot modules that will be available for lease or sale. The firm already has what it describes as “soft commitments” on about 20 percent of the space, an early sign that the strategy may be resonating with regional tenants.
On the brokerage side, Josh Heiple of CBRE represented the seller, while Jordan Beard of Cromwell handled the buy-side work for Keating.
What Keating Is Putting On The Menu
Cromwell Commercial lists the property as the Waco I-35 Logistics Center, with about 909,921 square feet now on offer. The marketing materials quote a gross lease rate of $6.50 per square foot.
The listing leans into the building’s workhorse credentials: 50 dock-high doors, multiple grade-level doors, a full fire-suppression system and clear heights that range from roughly 22 to 33 feet. In other words, the basics are already in place for distribution users and light manufacturers that do not want to start from scratch.
Rail Spurs, Boxcars And Big-Load Logistics
The site’s transportation credentials go beyond the freeway. The property includes two active Union Pacific rail spurs and, according to a release cited by The Real Deal, can handle as many as 90 boxcars at a time. It is also already served by natural gas and electric utilities and comes with roughly 20 acres of outdoor storage.
That combination of rail, power and yard space gives the complex the kind of heavy-logistics flexibility that can support both production lines and large-footprint distribution users watching every transportation dollar.
Why Waco Is On Industrial Investors’ Radar
Waco is no stranger to big-name manufacturers. The city already hosts significant production and packaging operations, including a large Mars Wrigley confectionery facility, and it has attracted a steady trickle of new industrial announcements in recent years.
The Greater Waco Chamber has reported that Electrolit is planning a roughly $400 million, 600,000 square foot production facility in the area, a project that underscores the type of demand Keating is betting on with its reimagined logistics center.
What This Means For Tenants And The Local Market
Regional coverage has described a Waco industrial market where speculative construction has been relatively limited and large blocks of space do not tend to sit empty for long. Those dynamics have made well-located, rail-capable facilities both scarce and highly contested, according to REBusinessOnline.
Keating’s play is straightforward: carve the enormous building into roughly 100,000 square foot chunks, post clear lease terms and try to convert those early soft commitments into signed deals. If the broader Waco industrial story holds, the former glass plant may not be quiet for long.
