If a developer were building a retail space the size of Crabtree Valley Mall, the market would be buzzing about it.

But a new industrial development near Durham is roughly the same size — and a reminder that industrial space is rolling while much of the commercial real estate market is struggling.

Welcome Venture Park, just northeast of Durham, has 394,800 square feet of space in Phase I. Houston’s Welcome Group has already leased 80 percent of the first phase — up from 50 percent just two months ago.

Some of that is leased to Virginia’s Cavalier Logistics, and executives from its Japanese parent, Mitsubishi Logistics Group, will visit May 12 to celebrate.

Phase II, likely to deliver by first quarter 2026, will have two buildings each with 100,000 square feet of space and will go vertical this summer.

Phase III, with four buildings and a total of 700,000 square feet, will follow immediately behind that.

That adds up to 1.3 million square feet, which is basically the retail space for Crabtree (1.3 million).

Randy Warren, whose RW2 Development Co. is developing the park, said intense interest from pharmaceutical companies is part of the demand.

“And we are proximate to I-85, so we can reach up and down the coast,” he said.

Its a similar story in Knightdale, where Wake Stone Property Co. will increase the size of its seventh building by 30 percent in its 1.2 million-square-foot Hinton Oaks Industrial Park. That park has fully leased the first five buildings.

According to TBJ’s Space publication, industrial space had a 7.62 vacancy rate in fourth quarter 2024 – reflecting, in part, the Triangle’s population surge.

“The residential growth is not to be discounted,” Warren said. “And some of our smaller tenants service that residential growth."