Former GM Facility in Shreveport, La., Reaches Full Occupancy

Industrial real estate development and investment firm IRG recently announced that its Shreveport Business Park campus — a former General Motors plant — has reached 100% occupancy.

The milestone was reached on the heels of a lease expansion at the property: Global energy technology company SLB, which first established its presence at the property in 2023, has further expanded its operations at the campus to occupy a total of 3.1 million square feet of Shreveport, La., industrial space, which takes the balance of the remaining availability at the former GM facility.

SLB currently has 820 employees on site, which is estimated to grow to 1,200 total employees upon the completion of the expansion.

Once largely vacant, the campus has evolved into a notable advanced manufacturing project that’s generating significant economic benefits for the northwest Louisiana region. Home to tenants such as SLB, Hyundai Glovis and USPS, employment numbers are on track to exceed what GM had at the conclusion of its operations here.

Specifically, an estimated 1,400 employees will work at Shreveport Business Park by 2027, which is well above the approximately 800 employees who were working there at the time of GM’s 2012 closure. The growth underscores the continued attractiveness of the region for industrial investment and job creation.

“SLB’s continued expansion in Shreveport is a tremendous success story for all involved and a powerful example of what can happen when world-class companies find the right facility, workforce and business environment,” said Stuart Lichter, president of IRG. “This growth has transformed a once-underutilized property into a major economic driver for northwest Louisiana.”

“Few industrial redevelopment projects demonstrate the impact of adaptive reuse more clearly than this campus,” Lichter added. “To see this massive property evolve from a largely vacant facility into a fully occupied industrial campus anchored by significant tenant investment is exactly the kind of outcome we envisioned. This project is creating jobs and strengthening the regional economy, and we are incredibly proud to be part of it.”

In the majority of the Southern U.S. markets included in our monthly national industrial report, in-place rents rested below the national average of $9.12 per square foot in May. At the same time, the roughly 88 million square feet of new industrial real estate under construction across these same markets accounted for nearly 23% of the national pipeline, which totaled a little more than 383.2 million square feet.