A joint venture is building a massive 462,000-square-foot distribution building on Jenkins Dairy Road in Gastonia, just west of Charlotte along Interstate 85, with completion targeted for January 2027. The Davis Companies and Intersect Development Group are teaming up to deliver the Class-A cross-dock facility, designed to accommodate modern logistics and manufacturing users on either a single-tenant or multi-tenant basis.
The project, located at 2550 Jenkins Dairy Road, traces back to a site assembly that began years before any construction crew showed up. According to Connect CRE, the building will offer strong international connectivity as part of the broader deal between the two developers. Intersect Development Group acquired the 67-acre parcel in November 2022 and secured a construction loan in August 2025 to move into vertical development before bringing on The Davis Companies as its joint venture partner, according to Intersect Development Group.
Concrete Pours Underway On-Site
Physical construction evidence backs up the timeline. Concrete supplier Thomas Concrete set up a dedicated portable batching plant directly on-site in August to mix and pour concrete for the tilt-up facility, the company said in a post shared on Facebook. That kind of on-site batching operation reflects the sheer volume of material needed for a building of this scale.
Per the same Connect CRE report, the finished building will feature 40-foot clear heights, an ESFR sprinkler system, 100 dock doors, 215 trailer parking spaces, and 328 auto parking spaces. The site also includes a secured truck court and a fully circulating loop road, features aimed squarely at attracting large-scale logistics operators.
Built With Room to Grow
Commercial listing details show the cross-dock building is divisible down to 164,000 square feet, with a 420-by-1,100-foot footprint, 7-inch concrete slab flooring, 54-by-55-foot column spacing, and 54-by-60-foot staging bays, along with 4,000-amp power service, according to Foundry Commercial. Beyond the 100 pre-built dock doors and two drive-in doors, the design also incorporates 20 knockout locations for future dock doors and two future drive-in knockouts, according to Intersect Development Group, giving future tenants room to expand without a full building overhaul.
Project marketing materials position the site just 1 mile, or about 2 minutes, from Interstate 85, roughly 20 miles from the I-485 outer beltway, and 21 miles, or about 22 minutes, from Charlotte Douglas International Airport, per Intersect Development Group. That kind of access has become the calling card for the surrounding corridor, where an Advance Auto Parts distribution center at 1900 Jenkins Dairy Road and a Freight Ninja secure fleet parking yard at 1981 Jenkins Dairy Road already anchor an established industrial hub, according to CommercialSearch.
A Tightening Industrial Market
The new building lands in a submarket where vacant Class-A space has been evaporating. Industrial market tracking by Cushman & Wakefield found that Gaston County vacancy fell by more than 460 to 710 basis points through mid-2026 as new Class-A distribution developments absorbed tenant demand along the I-85 corridor. That absorption trend lines up with a broader regional pattern: a report by Capital Analytics Associates found that Charlotte-area industrial properties delivered after 2015 captured over 6.5 million square feet of positive net absorption in 2025, while older, pre-2015 buildings actually lost tenants.
Institutional money has already taken notice of the county. Retail giant Walmart acquired the 1.26-million-square-foot Kings Mountain Corporate Center in Gaston County for $121.5 million in late 2025 to operate as an owner-user, per the same Cushman & Wakefield report, underscoring how the submarket has drawn major corporate commitments even beyond speculative developers.
Developer's Track Record in the Region
The Davis Companies continues to expand its industrial platform in the Southeast through the venture, according to Connect CRE, while Intersect Development Group brings its own history of building and monetizing speculative Class-A facilities along North Carolina interstates. The firm previously completed a 475,935-square-foot Class-A logistics building along the I-85/I-40 corridor in Whitsett, leasing it to Duke Energy before selling it to BentallGreenOak in 2022, according to Connect CRE's earlier coverage.
Transportation infrastructure, population growth, and tenant demand continue to support long-term investment in the Southeast, per Connect CRE's report on the joint venture. Gastonia's stretch of Jenkins Dairy Road had drawn attention even before this deal, after Hoodline reported in March that a nearby mega-site went back on the market amid land scarcity in western Gaston County. With the new building targeted for completion in January 2027, the Jenkins Dairy Road corridor looks set to add another large-scale logistics operation to its growing industrial footprint.
